


Temptation

by MissofMayhem



Category: Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Genre: Bane is hott, Bane learns about doms, Bane lite bdsm, Bane's POV, Epic sexual tension, F/M, Porn With Plot, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Spanking, Totally got out of hand, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-04 12:30:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6657781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissofMayhem/pseuds/MissofMayhem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bane/ Original Female Character. Little bit of a slow start, but bear with it. </p>
<p>Lizbeth Tsoukalos has drooled over Bane for years, but since his disappearance after the end of The Occupation, he has been in hiding. She thought she would never see him on her tv screen again. </p>
<p>Until he has her kidnapped. </p>
<p>More inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Bane/Ofc pairing. One-shot. I picture the ofc as Olivia Thirbly (the movie Dredd); dyed black hair, medium brown eyes, more on the regular side of pretty features. Bane; I know Bane best from The Dark Knight Rises, but I have given a few nods to the comics in the info I found on wikipedia. I feel that each fic about Bane should be unique in some way, therefore you might note my opinion on how the events from where the movie left off, my idea on his mask, as well as his personality and but one interpretation of his relationship with Talia. After watching the movie for the first time, and every subsequent viewing, I am a firm Talia-hater, but I have made an effort to temper that in this one shot so that any could enjoy.

In this fic and likely any subsequent fanfic I write on Bane, will show a human side to him. If you do not like the idea of Bane having non-mercenary moments, liking and listening to music (be it classical or other), having opinions on food, and other normal human reactions/moments, then you may not like this fic as much as others. And if that is the case then the parody I have planned is definitely not your cup of tea either.

To begin any fanfic, be it a long novel length story or a short one-shot, I like to ask myself questions. My inspiration for this one-shot scenario is thanks to first, the story named Born To Be Bred, which made me wonder what type of woman might appeal to a strong man like Bane. Credit also goes to Baniac for her wonderful Bane novel series that gives deep thought to all parts of Bane's life. And finally credit goes to an Ashwinder story of the name of For The Potion Master's Amusement, which led me to the question that started this one-shot: What would Bane do with a submissive woman?

That brings us to a potential problem you readers might have. This fic goes into Bdsm, but does not sink deep into the those types of scenes. Nothing really bad, just a little dynamic, a little spanking, things like that. It deals mostly with the mental/emotional side of a fictional D/s interaction. D being dominant and s being submissive. You can expect a bit of a slow burn before the fiery lemons. Think of it as more emotional comfort with sex added, cause it's all Tom Hardy's fault for making a villain so drool worthy. 

Please keep in mind that, as I am only working with what I know from The Dark Knight Rises, I have taken liberties that the movieverse has allowed me.

The title is the name of a song that inspired me to write this one shot and that I think embodies this oneshot. If it had a soundtrack, that song would be playing along with a couple of others. I usually like to name the song and lyrics that inspire each scene, but I have skipped that this time in favor of giving you an uninterrupted viewing. If any are interested about which songs and why I would have put in, let me know! I'm always thrilled to share music likes, seeing as music inspired me and I play my stories like movies in my head.

Warner bros, filming company, DC Comics, and Nolan own Bane and other canon characters; his lucky fiancée/wife owns the hotness that is Tom Hardy; Project Pitchfork owns the song Temptation and its lyrics; and I barely own my ofc and her friends.

Enjoy.

\---------------

 

Bing.

 

Liz blew air out from between her lipstick reddened lips as the elevator door opened, releasing her into the parking structure. She shifted the strap of her purse-slash-computer bag higher on to her shoulder, wincing as it dug into the sore muscle of her trapezius. She strode forward into the near empty parking area, gritting her teeth against the pain in her feet and calves from twelve long hours at work in four inch stilettos. She headed towards the cheap black sedan she had owned since high school, her heels clicking sharply and echoing in the large concrete room.

 

Walking to her car late at night and alone in Gotham City always made her skin crawl, but tonight the feeling was stronger. She fingered her keys until they threaded through her fingers like spikes, mentally daring the dumb ass who thought they might jump her to escape unscathed. She felt especially vulnerable, seeing as she was dressed in a skirt which made sexual assault easier.

 

Liz wasn't exactly your average Gothamite, nor was she exceedingly abnormal. Since the age of twelve, Liz had learned karate and was in the Top 50 Black Belts in the city by 18. After graduation, she discovered MMA which she dabbled in in her off time. She was by no means a professional and obviously only fought women, but it kept her from three purse snatchings and one car jacking. After being bullied for most of her life, she would rather die in a scuffle with a junkie than become a victim again. Most thugs noticed her lack of fear and the readiness of her stance and left her alone for an easier mark.

 

The near silent rasp of a shoe on textured concrete almost made her jump, adrenaline spiking through her bloodstream. She knew someone was there, all angles making her skin crawl with the feeling of eyes watching her; making it impossible to sense where the danger might come from. Her palm moistened and her fingers tightened around her keys. Heart pounding in her chest, knees trembling, she tried to resist the urge to bolt, continuing to stride towards her car.

 

She ran a shaking hand through her unnaturally colored raven-black hair, trying to slyly scope out where the creep was. Nothing. No shoes bearing a person could be spotted hiding behind her car. No darkened corners where someone could hide. There were only two pillars in the parking lot and those were far enough from her and her car to not be of concern. No one sat in her backseat that she could see from where she was. The only possible hiding spots were to the high ceilings, darkened with pipes and sprinklers, but the thought of someone actually hiding up there was ridiculous. Most thugs did not have ninja skills.

 

Tink.

 

Liz flinched hearing a second sound, unable to suppress the natural reaction that she might be hunted prey. It was a sensation that was not alien in the women of Gotham; feeling and being prey. Her body trembled and she stopped in the lighted center of the parking lot. The scuff had come from behind her, but the 'tink' came from ahead and to her right. Her warm brown eyes searched the area, trying to ignore the feeling of being surrounded and outnumbered.

 

It was just water in the pipes, you silly bitch. She thought to herself. She shook her head and continued towards her car, even though her strides had lengthened and quickened.

 

She got to her car with a rattling breath that she didn't know she had been holding. It’s just like last week's fight. No different. Breathe, breathe. She told herself, fighting her shaking hands to unlock her aging Mazda. Feeling like the walls were closing in on her, she wrenched the squeaking door open and threw her bag in. She folded herself into the driver’s seat and started to lean forward to slam the door closed.

 

A cold, rough, and male hand closed over her mouth from her backseat. She sucked a breath in and her eyes widened as two more men seemed to melt down from the ceiling and converge on her car.

 

Liz wasn't usually the hysterical type. Too many years of self-imposed combat had stifled that response. But she was one to yell in a fight if the situation warranted it. She gave a roar of outrage as she realized this was likely to be her only chance at escaping.

 

With her left hand, she put her manicured nails to work, clawing viciously at the hand over her mouth. Her lips pulled back into a snarl and roared with animalistic fear. She reached behind her with her right hand, keys still threaded through her fingers, and swung her fist around violently until she caught man. Instead of the normal reaction of letting her go, he only grunted at her efforts and held her more securely. Her wildly stabbing and waving arm kept him from wrapping an arm around her torso and pinning her to the seat.

 

The two men outside the car converged towards her door. She started to panic. She bit at the palm against her mouth while managing a successful stab at the thug behind her. He cried out, more out of shock than pain and loosened his grip just enough. One man started to lean in and reach for her legs, which she kicked wildly until she saw an opening. She tore herself from the man behind her, landed a very solid kick to the diaphragm of the man at the door, sending him to his back. She levered herself out of her car and scrambled to get away from the third man who was just making his way around the front bumper of her sedan. She tripped over the gasping man on the ground and struggled to her feet in her heels. A squealing of tires started from the lower level, heading for her and her assailants.

 

"Get'er!" The man on the ground gasped, even as one pursued and the other was unfolding himself from the backseat. She knew there would be no out-running them but still she tried, mourning the loss of her freedom when a steely male arm wrapped around her waist and clamped down. The force of her sudden stop spun the pair, her feet leaving the ground but lining her up with the man who had been behind her in the car. She struck out again with her legs, using the solid muscle behind her to aim for his head. He ducked out of the way, reflexes quick as lightning. It didn't save him from her heel flying off her foot and miraculously hitting him in the face. He crouched with a grunt and held a bleeding hand to his face. She let out a bark of laughter, surprised that such a thing could happen in real life and not just in movies.

 

The man holding her wrapped a hand around her throat for more control, seeing as she wasn't subdued yet, but made no attempt to choke her. A groan brought her attention to the man who she had kicked in the chest, only to see him raising himself to his feet, snatching a fallen black sack from the ground as he did. Liz futilely struggled from her captor, but he had her too firmly. The other man handed the sack to his comrade in a silent refusal to enter striking range again.

 

"Stop fighting!" The captor growled in her ear with an eastern European accent. His scruffy beard rasped against ear and neck while she struggled. She started to whine low in her throat as she realized that there was no escaping this. That she was going to be kidnapped.

 

The man coming at her had her full attention, but small details made her pause and cock her head. To anyone else, their militia-style dress wouldn't have made them pause in fighting their own capture. Especially if that person had experienced The Occupation but two years before.

 

But Liz was not exactly what could be referred to as normal.

 

His sand colored tactical boots blended with his faded olive green cargo pants. He was a lean man of average height, build, and looks. He wore a scuffed brown Carhartt jacket and a faded crimson scarf tucked into it. The pockets bulged with hidden items and a black gun sat on his army green fabric belt. He gave his hand a flick, dropping a couple of specks of blood on the concrete. His jaw was flexed and his eyes were hard. She shivered and started to panic more. She started to babble nonsense as he came at her with the black sack.

 

The roar of an engine erupted from behind her and her captor, followed by the squeal of tires skidding on the ground. The sound of a van's side door being ripped open echoed. She bucked, kicked and struggled to escape, knowing she would just tire herself, but not wanting that sack on her head.

 

Even as he gathered the thin fabric in his hands in preparation of putting it over her head, he did not smile in triumph. He just stared at her with cold, calculating blue eyes. His scarf made her pause. The main portion to the scarf was thin and gauzy in a faded crimson that had seen many hard years. But it was the embroidered edge that trailed along the scarf that caught her eye. Its design upon first look was Moroccan-style arrows. Or mountains? She wondered.

 

No, its teeth. She realized with a gasp. Her heart and breath seemed to stop and all of time paused for just a second. She knew where she had seen that pattern before. And in Gotham, no man had the brass ones to wear something as controversial as a scarf like that.

 

Except Bane's mercenaries.

 

Everything went black as the hood went over her head. She was manhandled into the van and sat on what felt like a gym floor - dense foam covered in vinyl. Her hands were zip-tied together in front of her, but she noticed that the men were abnormally gentle with her. She kept careful attention to making sure her skirt stayed down and her legs were pressed together. While they barked orders to each other in what sounded like a Slavic language, she noticed they prevented her from being knocked or thrown around and they had not thrown her into the van in a careless manner. Her shoe was tossed at her without a sound, hitting her ankle. What the fuck is this? Kidnapping First class style?

 

Two men entered the van before the door closed and they sped away. The sound of her rattily engine turning over told her that her car would not be found in the morning by the secretary.

 

Questions and demands were the norm for hostages, or whatever she was, but she refrained. The Slavic looking man did not seem the type to take a demanding loud-mouthed woman lightly. She kept her mouth shut and pondered exactly what she could have done to get herself here.

 

And why her kidnappers appeared to have worked for Bane.

 

\-------------

 

Liz had been born into a lower-middle class Gotham family. Her childhood was average and normal. She had a few friends and she excelled in school as any normally intelligent child did. Her teenage years were fraught with more problems, but were still nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Liz battled bullying, as most teens did. Her temper and choice of friends made her a prime target in high school. Her father had enrolled her in karate classes after it was clear the fighting with other girls was not going to stop. It helped her manage her temper and vent her energy in a way that she found both challenging and fun.

 

Liz's talents with computers landed her a tech support job right out of high school. Which eventually led her to her current profession. She worked for a law firm, getting information on clients and anyone her boss told her to get dirt on. She was adept at hacking and had a tenacity for not giving up until she got what she wanted. It made her a great asset to the crooked defense attorney she worked for. On the books, she was a filing clerk, making just above minimum wage. Off the books, she did illegal hacking to supply her boss with blackmail fodder, who in turn supplied her with bonuses.

 

The Harvey Dent Act really put a cog in her boss’s ability to keep his clients out of jail. Which made everyone's lives more difficult. Liz could only do so much, and truth be told, sometimes she withheld information in order for some of those creeps to rot behind bars. She had been working only four years when the masked man, Bane, showed up in Gotham.

 

Liz had been enjoying a rare day off when Bane first showed up on her tv; immediately she was transfixed with him. You see, Liz had always been different. She liked powerful men. Men with presence and menacing. Men that were the Alpha males of the alpha males. Ones that wore their dominance over others like a fine suit. She knew she had a kink for dominant men. 

 

Her best friend, Cam, had introduced her to the BDSM scene years before. Liz had experimented within it, liked it, but had yet to find that special man that made her not question why the perfect place for her was at his feet. She wasn't so much into the pain aspect of the punishments she received for being belligerent or stubborn, so she had dropped out of the scene for a while. Hoping that age would temper her fire a little and she could find a man who had just enough of that special something to make her give in.

 

But even through her small plasma screen, Bane made her stop and take notice. Oh, but she feared him, as well as lusted. She was under no misconceptions about Bane and his terrorist style. She knew he was a type to kill, she had seen him kill that physicist. She knew he was dangerous, but he captivated her regardless.

 

Her other best friend, Jesse, was the first to explain Bane's philosophy on society to her. Jesse, a devout computer nerd of epic proportions, had been scouted and cautiously welcomed into the mercenary group pre-Occupation for his almost genius hacking skills. Jesse explained that Bane's Occupation was not the workings of a mind like the Joker, but of someone wishing to release the oppressive dynamic the wealthy had inflicted upon the poor. Not the rich, but the billionaire wealthy who were corrupt, unjust, and rotten to their very black souls. Such a viewpoint rang very strongly through Liz, as she had seen and been part of that very corruption.

 

The Occupation had rocked the very foundation of Liz's world. Her boss was one of many brought before Scarecrow's kangaroo court and had been found wanting for the mansion he owned while his employees lived in squalor. She found herself quickly jobless, which meant she soon lacked the funds for rent on the tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood she lived in. The release of the Blackgate prisoners brought a whole new aspect of trouble to her door, many who wanted to hire her for more illegal deeds. Her refusal was not always accepted. Luckily, none knew how she had played god with their fates in the courtroom.

 

Liz had tried to get accepted into Bane's circle of mercenaries, but failed to prove herself worthy enough. Instead, she was turned into a 'go-for-girl' by the lower ranking soldiers of Bane's militia. It earned her easier access to food but did not even allow her a passing glimpse of the masked man unless it was through a tv screen. It did not stop her obsession with him though. That never went away.

 

Life was hard during The Occupation for single women, but Liz survived. There weren't many options for women to make some cash during that time; most options being things of a sexual nature. She made enough scrap money off doing cage fights that she was able to stay full, warm, and housed through that winter. Before The Occupation, Liz was an adept martial arts fighter and had enough skills in the female section of MMA to make it a very fun hobby. She attributed her love of fighting other women to the fights she experienced as a teen and used the years of bullying to fuel her rage in the cage. She loved making her opponent bleed and tap out, even if sometimes she lost.

 

Her best friend, Cam, had been the one to tell her about the massive fight between Bane's men and the escaped policemen. Cam had always been a bad influence on Liz. They got into fights together. Cam brought her into BDSM and the goth scene. She had even talked Liz into getting piercings. So it came to no surprise of Liz's that Cam was planning on sneaking in on the fight and joining Bane's side. It also helped that Cam had been banging one of their lead medics since before The Occupation.

 

While Cam dove into the fighting with mostly home derived weapons, Liz had hesitated. It was different than a one on one fight with another woman. There were men and it was a mess of melee. It was battle, not fighting. Life or death. There were no refs to call it quits on a downed opponent. There were no rules, no maneuvers banned, no timeouts. It was shocking and disturbing enough that Liz did not know what to do. She had ducked into what she thought was part of the courthouse where the fighting was going on, hoping that none would find her.

But it seemed that fate knew exactly where she needed to be. She could hear Cam's boytoy, Gabriel, speaking to others through the radio clipped to her hip. He was excused from the main melee in order to treat injuries, but he was in a position to sniper those he could. So when chaos exploded near her hiding spot and Bane came flying through the doorway from the explosive shot at him, Liz was in a perfect spot to see that he was in a bad way.

 

With Batman, Catwoman, and all the other potentially violent people nearby, Liz did not immediately go to his side, though every part of her wanted to. She couldn't tell if he was still alive, but from all she knew of him, he was a man of mysterious abilities. She radioed Gabriel telling him what she saw.

 

Soon a group of men snuck in and carried the large man away.

 

She never knew if he was alive, if she had saved him or not. She never heard whisper of his existence, even when she used all her hacking abilities to find even the smallest kernel of information. There was nothing. But she knew nothing could sometimes be everything. There were no found bodies. No intelligence organization claiming they’d seen him dead or alive.

 

Every part of her life had changed after The Occupation. Jesse had disappeared with the mercenaries. She knew in her gut that he was alive and there had been a couple of times someone called her private cell, only to hang up. Cam came and went with no warning. Liz could only assume that she was still seeing Gabriel, but Cam refused to say anything about what happened or what went on. Liz did not like the looks that Cam gave her sometimes, as if unsure what to think or say anymore.

 

She could not even lose herself in the clubs anymore. Too many goth guys thought it was cool to dress like Bane. Some, she could tell right off weren't him. They wouldn't have the bulk or the mannerisms. A couple, she had thought it was actually him, only to have her hopes dashed upon the jagged rocks of disappointment. It always left a bitter despair in her that felt so much like how heartbreak was described.

 

She knew her obsession had past the point of just unhealthy. She recorded every little bit of news that showed his face, body, or voice and replayed it over and over. She hung pictures of him on her walls. She thought of him constantly. She forgot what a good night's sleep felt like and food had lost its flavor. Only fighting allowed her a small reprieve from mourning a man she never knew, and then it was only for those twenty minutes in the cage.

 

In the past six months, she was finally starting to move on. She was finally starting to forget about him, or at the very least she only caught herself thinking of him on occasion. She rarely had nightmares of finding him dead anymore. She was able to take down the pictures on her walls and watch the recordings only on occasions.

 

Until the feds raided her apartment while she was at work last week, taking nearly everything. Nothing went overlooked. They held her for questioning for hours before releasing her. They returned her phones and her computer, even going so far as to help her set her apartment back to right.

 

But now she was starting to worry. She knew her hacking was illegal but all the feds had done was shake their finger at her and call her 'naughty'. She never went looking into governmental stuff, knowing that was a sure fire way to get her on the express train to jail time, if not worse. But she didn't understand why the feds thought she knew all about Bane and that she had contacts within their group she now knew was called the League. Sure, they had film of Bane's last sighting and sure, she was in it clearly calling for the rescue team. But that was it. It hadn't been until after they searched everything with a fine tooth comb that they finally released her and her stuff.

 

Whatever the reason for this, Liz just knew it was not going to end well for her. Kidnappings rarely did.

 

\-----------------

 

Bane threw his heavily muscled arm over his eyes, as if that was all it would take to make him fall back into that delicate balance of space and time that wasn't quite dreaming and wasn't quite consciousness. A sigh rattled out from his mask. He knew there would be no sleep for him and it seemed that his mind was whirling too fast to return back to that dozing he had just woken from. This was nothing new to him. Sleeplessness often came after a fresh tube of Venom had been placed in his mask.

 

He hated his mask, but had long since resigned himself to its constant presence in his life. It's current version, one he had lived with for the past half decade or more, was a vast improvement over the previous ones, both in Venom and in the construction of the mask itself, but that did not stop him from loathing its existence. Its benefits had long since outweighed its limitations, even when it was fickle in its prototype years. He hated it for the constant reminder of The Pit and of his debilitating physical weakness. He hated that beneath it, he barely appeared human, and without it he was hardly a step above a cripple. In some ways, he despised the medicine that the mask aerated more than the mask itself. 

 

The Venom chemical had been formulated and named by a league hired chemist. The chemist had been mentally questionable in Bane's opinion from the beginning, but who was he to question the generosity of Ras Al Ghul. The benefits of the formula made him a super soldier of sorts. It extinguished fear and anxiety. It boosted his nervous system making his reactions faster. It enhanced his circulatory and respiratory systems making his endurance and recovery rate better. It nearly wiped out all physical pain but left his other senses just as accurate. It allowed him to build and keep muscle that worked extremely efficiently.

 

But the side effects were some that he did not care for. He was always too warm, unless it was snowing, making him agitated and sweaty. His temperature was always slightly above normal, as if he always had a low grade fever. The sweat from his face when training got in his eyes, made his hands slip, and made the seal on his mask questionable. The humidity from the aerated formula wrecked havoc on his mangled sinuses, giving him a nasal whine to his voice if he talked above a low grumble. He found it extremely annoying. That which allowed him to keep his physical bulk regardless of training or quality of food, made him mercurial and prone to fits of temper. Before the mask he had battled with his temper, with the Venom it was a constant fight. One side effect that was bittersweet was the mellowing of any sexual desire that a male in his mid-thirties experienced. He liked not having the distraction of thinking with his hormones like the other males in the League, but he missed some of the want to be intimate with a woman. He was eternally grateful for its ability to make it easier for him to have ignored Talia's subtle propositions. 

 

Talia. My dear child. Bane thought with a mental sigh of emotional agony mixed with disappointment and wistfulness. His mother had once told him that hindsight was 20/20 and never in his life had he felt it more than when he had awoken after Gotham's near destruction.

 

For many years, Bane had deluded himself with regards to Talia. Make no mistake, he knew there was a chilling darkness in her that was not found in most women. But Talia was not most women, was Bane's argument to any seeds of doubt that had sprouted in his mind of the decades leading up to The Occupation. Talia had not exactly been a happy child, despite knowing nothing different than what The Pit offered. She had an innate ability to make those around her bend to her will and give her what she wanted. There was also an ingrained organic femininity about everything she did or said that nothing Bane did could hide forever. She had no fear of retribution, only a burning fire of vengeance that guided her. But at the same time, she was untouched by society and wanted nothing but food, water, and Bane. 

 

Bane had reveled in the devotion of a child's love. Of her trust. It calmed the Pit hardened beast he had become and taught him softness and the wonder of children and women. Bane cared for her as both father and brother and in his memories she would always, first, be that bright blue-eyed toddler making her first steps across the stone cell into his waiting arms. When he thought of her name, she was always first, that child with the short hair, high voice, dirty rags and trusting gaze for him only.

 

But it seemed the introduction of her father and the League had tarnished her childhood, forming her. Bane remembered the horror he felt when he first set eyes on her after Ra's had brought him to the League. She had aged, first coming into womanhood at 13, a handful of years older than he had last seen her. Bane could understand how it had happened, that change in her. Her father spoiled her in efforts to make up for years lost and Talia had reveled in it. She wore the best makeup, the most expensive perfumes, the finest silks. Looking back, Bane knew that was the beginning of 'Miranda Tate'. The League polished her into a useful weapon, but also unleashed a monster.

 

Bane never let himself doubt her loyalty to him, even when she lied to her father and had Bane cast out of the League. He trusted her judgment where her father and their Demon Head was concerned. Ra's had never really liked him much to begin with. Over the years, he thought that she loved him. It was always in her looks and touches. Her words and smiles. It wasn't until after Ra's death that Bane really started to doubt her rationality. She was consumed by her impulsive and passionate emotions. She tried to convince him that their relationship had evolved into that of a sexual nature. But Bane trusted his gut and denied her that one boon. She tried on multiple accounts to make him jealous and to manipulate him into a fury. She had succeeded a few times in inciting his temper over her silly games. And each time she tried to seduce him, it was harder for him to refuse her. But he did, for he still pictured that child in the Pit when he looked upon her, even after she had completely embraced the lifestyle of 'Miranda Tate'.

 

Bane had been shocked to later find out through Barsad, his right hand, that she had always intended for Bane to stay behind and die with the bomb. That the reason the extraction team never came, the night before the explosion, was because she had called them off. It was her orders to leave him behind that had fueled his rage at Bruce Wayne, 'Batman'.

 

She abandoned him to die. His life was worth to her that of those wretches in Gotham. Nothing. All his years of unquestioning obedience got him a death with all those he loathed. His loyalty had no value to Miranda, and Talia had long since died in the sunlight of the desert around The Pit she’d escaped from at 8 years old. It had been a sobering and angering moment that Bane still relived. The feeling of betrayal had waned in the two years since her death, but it had not left completely.

 

Chirp.

 

Bane left his thoughts at the sound of his phone notifying him that he had a message. Only Barsad and a couple of other League lieutenants had access to his phone. He sat up with a groan and snatched it off the bedside table. He flicked it open, punched a few buttons and read the message. Package in route. ETA to bird 2hrs. Bane nodded and flicked the phone shut. Barsad needed no answer, he was only informing his Demon Head that the mission was successful. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and strode over to his desks that sat in the corner of the room, covered in papers and a computer. A picture of a woman hung by a thumbtack to a cork board on the wall.

 

She was neither pretty nor homely. Her features were delicate but not enough to be considered striking and she wore the occasional piercing. Bane knew everything and nothing about the woman in the black and white photo he stared at. He knew all the facts of her life and he had interviewed her friends, but he still did not know what made her who she was, nor why she called for help on his behalf. She confused and captivated him. He wanted to know more about such a normal yet unique woman.

 

"Lizbeth Tsoukalos, who are you?" He whispered to himself in query, while memorizing the features of the woman he would soon be meeting. Part of him hoped she disgusted him like all Gotham women did, so that he would feel justified in the action he was forced to take with her.

 

\-------------------------------

 

From the voices, she guessed there was one man driving, one sitting passenger, and three in back with her. One, she currently nicknamed Bleeder, was obviously cursing in another language under his breath while patching himself up from her bite to his palm. He had been the one who had gotten the worse of it from her and the one who she did not want to mess with. His accent was ambiguous and he spoke the language that the other men did, but without the finesse they managed meaning it was a second language. Bleeder seemed to be the one giving orders, not taking them, though he did not act as though he ranked higher than the others. They seemed to be a team with one who knew the most of what was going on. She could feel him looking at her on occasion but it did not stick for long.

 

Tummy, the one she had kicked in the stomach, coughed and made general noises of pain while the others obviously ribbed him for getting kicked. She could feel his glare burning her skin through the thin sack over her head. It made her almost more nervous of his revenge than she was of Bleeder and his chilly silver eyes.

 

Slav, the one that had caught her and held her in her attempt to escape, sat closest to her. She could almost feel the heat of his shoulder next to her, on occasion bumping arms with him when the van turned unexpectedly. He seemed to take it all unemotionally. He smelled faintly of vanilla cheroots which was better than the stale straw smell that the sack had, or the burnt patchouli incense smell that was coming from one of the other men.

 

There was one other man in the van with them. She named him Tech. He had immediately searched her computer bag, which had been thrown in with them. He made occasional huffs of annoyance while obviously picking her phone and laptop apart. She could hear him pecking at the familiar keys. She smiled briefly beneath her hood, he would have a hell of a time getting in.

 

"Ha!" She heard from his corner of the van. That voice sounded so familiar to her. But she hadn't heard it in years. Her head snapped to where she thought he was, and while she couldn't see anything but the slight changes in light through the sack, it was habit.

 

"Jesse?" She asked quietly, hoping her question wouldn't get her kicked or hit. She knew how these things went in the movies. But she also couldn't help but to know if it really was her best friend or not.

 

"No, its Samwise." Jesse said in a code that they had developed as teens, as well as an extra deep voice that sounded comical. After reading Lord of the Rings, Liz and Cam had come to the decision that Jesse was Samwise Gamgee and had called him thus for about a year. He had loved it so it stuck and they still used it. They sometimes spoke in code if they were talking about illegal or questionable things in mixed company.

 

Liz let a breath of air out of her lungs and nearly cried at hearing his voice. She reached for her hood but was stopped by Slav. His hand was firmly wrapped around her wrist in warning but did not hurt her.

 

"We gotta pull a Lothlorien." He said, still trying to disguise his voice. Liz took a moment and mentally deciphered what he meant. Head covered, got it. She let her hands down and nodded. Slav took his off her wrist and all men seemed to breathe out together. Guess I made an impression on them. "You got squab in the eaves." Someone had hacked her and was listening. My shit's bugged. "Once I Mount Doom, all's good." He has to find the bugs and programs and destroy it. Bleeder started talking to Jesse and sounded unhappy. Or maybe it was just his language. Jesse spoke back before sighing. She could hear rustling in the van before her arm was taken firmly by a half bandaged hand.

 

"You gotta Sleeping Beauty."

 

"But," Liz started but felt a pinch in her inner elbow. A needle. Oh god they are drugging me, she thought as she felt something warm creep up her arm.

 

The last thing she heard was Jesse apologizing. The last thing she felt was someone slowly lowering her to the mat beneath. The last thing she smelled was vanilla cheroots and burnt patchouli.

 

\------------------

 

"You assured me it has all been cleared, but you hesitate," Bane questioned into the phone he had held up to his ear. The last thing Bane wanted was that squint bringing bugged technology into their second base of operations. The one that he and most of the league currently inhabited.

 

"I understand your concern, sir." Jesse paused as if waiting for him to cut him off. When Bane said nothing, Jesse started to explain, "You see, sir, I've found the fed’s bugs and destroyed them. That's not the problem. The problem is that Liz has an encrypting program on here of her own making. It is amazing. I have cracked every encrypting code known to cyberspace, but this, this is the Mona Lisa. And she has it setup like those - ."

 

"What is the threat level?" Bane growled into the phone, interrupting the rambling of the geek.

 

"Low, sir." Jesse answered with slightly more focus. Bane could hear the clicking of Lizbeth's laptop through the speaker on the cell phone. "I've found the stuff she has on her work and the trails the feds left behind. I doubt it is of anything of importance to anyone but Liz. Do I have your permission to bring it home? I have a program that I know could crack this with a little time."

 

"Granted." Bane growled lowly. The unspoken threat was clear to the nerd on the other end when he cleared his throat. Bane had learned Jesse had nervous ticks; throat clearing was one of the most common. "What's the status?"

 

"Barsad came out the worst, though Nigel is second. Danijel is his usual self and got off the easiest with a couple of bruises."

 

"Injuries?" Bane asked, his tone rising in his shock and amusement. One American woman against three league men, and two out of three were casualties. Bane wasn't sure if he should be annoyed Barsad obviously had not taken the mission seriously or entertained that Lizbeth was feisty.

 

"Uh, Barsad has a bite wound to the hand and a scrape to the temple. Nigel got a kick to the stomach. He thinks he has a cracked rib, but Danijel disagrees." Jesse told him with a little amusement in his voice that made Bane's scarred lips twitch. "I told them she wasn't gonna be easy." Jesse commented.

 

"And how is Miss Tsoukalos?" Bane asked. He had given his men strict orders that she was not to be harmed unless there was a very real risk of her getting away, and even then, nothing damaging. It was a subdue, collect, and deliver type of mission. He had sent Barsad to complete the mission, knowing that Barsad had very strict morals on violence towards women. Bane was well aware that the men on that trip could be trusted to treat her well. Bane had not yet decided if she could be an asset and stay within the League or needed to be dealt with. Until then, she was to be treated with respect.

 

"Not a scratch, sir." Jesse said with both parts amusement and seriousness. Bane nodded silently to himself, for some reason glad that at least that had gone as planned. "She is still sleeping off the dose Barsad gave her. Thank you for letting me come, sir. It helped calm her."

 

Bane ignored the gratitude of a friend and focused on the mission. "And the information that the Feds have?"

 

"Ha! They ain't got shit. Liz only had stuff that they would have had access to years ago. They left me a nice little back door, that I'll tinker with when I get back to the compound."

 

"Good. Get me into their records. I want to know all that they do." Bane told him.

 

"You got it, boss. I can get you in the easy way this time. The CIA can be a little more sketchy about their stuff, but not the feds." Jesse assured him. "Oh, Barsad wants the phone back." Jesse said before it being handed off.

 

Barsad briefed his leader with all the precision of the best the League had to offer. Bane expected nothing less.

 

\------------------------

 

Liz vaguely remembered waking a couple of times during her kidnapping. The first time, she had blearily opened her eyes to see the inside of an older cargo plane. The kind that you see military in the movies using, where they are metal and industrial inside but for a row of seats along each side of the plane. Bleeder had been buckling her into her seat and arranging a thick wool blanket around her. They had taken the black sack from her head but kept her drugged. She could see through a small porthole window that it was either dawn or dusk outside and she wondered how long they had kept her sleeping. It was cold in the plane and a wild wind whipped through the open cargo hatch.

 

"Sleep child." Bleeder told her, looking at her with cool blue eyes. His accent sounded more German with a hint of something else she could not place. He seemed to have forgiven her for her hurting him, even as he injected her again with more of the drug that made her sleep.

 

The next time she woke for a moment, she saw a magical landscape out of the window of a moving SUV. It was just before dusk and the sky was lit up in pinks, blues, oranges, yellows, and purples across a near desert-like landscape. A city of simple houses sat at the base of a cliff that was topped with an old eastern styled fort. The city was glowing with the lights of their houses and the colors the sky cast upon the pale stones of their brick houses. She could hear children laughing and playing alongside the gravel road they slowly trundled up. She rested her head against the glass and in her loaded state, stared at the gorgeous sights before her, but only for a moment before the caress of the drug they gave her, beckoned her back again into unconsciousness.

 

\-----------------

 

Liz slowly drifted into consciousness. It was a slow process. She felt groggy like a hangover, but without the headache or nausea. Yet, she told herself. She first noticed that she was warm, due to a scratchy blanket draped over her. It smelled faintly of motor oil, but not enough to be truly offensive.

 

That was when she remembered what had happened the night before. Or whenever that was. She tried to sit up quickly, realizing she was a long way from home, only to find her body not as responsive and her head spinning. She propped herself up on an arm and held a hand to her head. She slowly cracked her brown eyes, blinking the blurry shapes into focus.

 

"Slowly." An accented male voice told her from a few feet away. She looked in his direction before scanning the room that she was in.

 

The overhead fluorescent lights were off, soft daylight came through a small barred window above her. It was obvious that she was in a basement room, seeing as the window was situated. The room walls were smooth brick or stone, painted a very pale beige. There were no obvious signs that a prisoner had been held in the room previous to her, like scratch marks or anything of the like. She sat upon a simple wool stuffed futon-like mat that smelled slightly stale, but was otherwise clean, firm, and not unreasonably uncomfortable. It had no pillow but what could she expect, it wasn't the Hilton, it was kidnapping. To her right was a cloth and bamboo screen that she could see the shadow of a toilet behind. Bleeder sat at a small metal table with two chairs, all three bolted into the stone floor. An air conditioning vent rattled occasionally from the ceiling next to the black glass dome of a surveillance camera. 

 

Bleeder sat crookedly in the chair, a picture of male casualness. He scraped under his short nails with a large and sharp looking knife with a familiarity that made Liz flinch, wondering how many times he had cut his fingers before becoming proficient. He looked up at her, his motions pausing, with a chilling gaze.

 

She could see the blatant warning in his eyes. Do not challenge me, they said. Liz curled her body into a ball for a small amount of comfort in a strange place around strange men. Her clothes felt just as they had when she had been in the van, as wrinkled and mussed as expected. There was no tenderness to her skin or body that hinted at molestation or abuse while she had slept, which was a weight off her shoulders but also made her unsure of their intentions.

 

"Where am I?" She asked quietly, looking Bleeder in his blue eyes. His bandaged hand had fresh white gauze on it and seemed to cause him no handicap. His left temple was swollen and scrapped but showed no other signs of injury from her shoe hitting him in the head.

 

"You are far from Gotham." He said in response. He had an obvious accent but it was hard to place the extra factor to it other than German, or a similar sounding language. She looked down at her shaking hands, clenched tight around her knees which were pulled to her chest. She was covered in the grey scratchy blanket from stocking covered toes to shoulders.

 

"Why am I here?" She whispered, her eyes started to well as her emotions swelled in her chest.

 

Bleeder flicked his eyes to his left, seeming to swallow the words he had been about to say. He stared back when she looked up briefly when no response came.

 

"Where's Jesse?" She asked, hoping that her best friend was ok and not in a worse situation than her.

 

"Busy." Bleeder answered with a minute twitch of his lips. So he is probably alive. She thought, trying to find some comfort in it.

 

"Who are you?" She queried, hoping to put a name to a face. A face that in her opinion was being quite gentle with her considering all that she knew of terrorists taking women hostages. Which was strictly from movies.

 

"We are the League." He answered with a frown and a tone that suggested he thought her a simpleton. Her lips twitched as she looked at her knees, hoping to hide the amusement from him, in case it offended.

 

"I mean your name." She said a little more confidently. Comprehension dawned in his eyes only, before they shifted to his left again as if listening to something only he could hear. His focus returned to her and his chilling blue eyes softened for a nanosecond before returning to near emotionlessness.

 

"Barsad." He answered. He nonchalantly flicked his knife closed with a swift and comfortable flick of his wrist, making her flinch.

 

"What are you going to do with me?" The sobriety in her voice must have made her meaning clear. He blinked as if being asked the weather.

 

"It hasn't been decided yet. You will stay here until it has been decided." He said calmly. Her eyes welled. Her odds of surviving did not look good and god only knew how long the civil treatment would last. "You will be brought three meals a day. Escape attempts will not be tolerated." Barsad told her before leaving her to her plain prison.

 

Liz sat wrapped around herself as her eyes welled with tears that she barely managed to suppress.

 

\--------------------

 

Bane found himself in an unusual mood. He fidgeted and paced. He found no peace of mind in meditation nor in exercise. He could not calm himself in drink like most men could, as the mixing alcohol with Venom would be toxic. His mind hunted Lizbeth Tsoukalos and would not be pulled off the scent of her.

 

Barsad and his team had delivered her earlier in the day. She had been put in one of the basement cells that Jesse called 'the guest rooms'. He was partially right. Here, at the League's winter compound, they did have a difference in the cells for those in their custody. There were those like the one that Lizbeth was put in and then there were the ones that made the Pit look like a beach resort.

 

It was early evening, time when dinner was wrapped up by those who were on the day shift. It was also soon time for their guest to be brought her dinner.

 

Bane wondered who should be sent. Barsad had developed a rapport with the woman as seen by the footage that Bane had been unable to tear his eyes from. Nigel would be a good choice, as it would be punishment for letting a woman catch him off guard enough to connect a blow that well. Jesse would reassure her. Not that Bane had decided whether she would be put down or kept within the League.

 

Crrrsh. Bane turned his head toward the radio sitting on his desk. It was how members communicated within the compound with each other and him.

 

"Sir?" Jesse's voice questioned from the speaker. Bane blew air out of his scarred nostrils in annoyance. He snatched the radio off his desk and pressed the requisite buttons.

 

"Speak." Bane ordered. He could sense the weaker man's cringe through the speaker.

 

"I cracked the encryption. That's all, sir. I'll send my report to you," Jesse said through the radio, knowing through rumors of Bane's temper.

 

"No. You will give your report now." Bane snarled into the speaker, hackles raised.

 

"Yes, sir." Jesse answered shakily. "I cracked the encryption. It was a password based code, which once I had, unscrambled the text. Sir, you have my full confidence that Liz is not a threat to the League. Or you."

 

"What is the text?" Bane demanded sensing the hesitation in the other man's voice.

 

"Sir, it's just stuff that Liz wrote. It's of no consequence to the League." Jesse answered.

 

"What purpose do you serve to the League?" Bane asked, deceptively calm.

 

"Sir?" Jesse asked, confused.

 

"You are neither the League’s strategist nor Demon Head. Do you understand?" Bane asked, trying not to crush the radio in his hand. His anger had been building in him for months, years even, with no proper outlet. He wanted to know why this random woman, this Gotham citizen had decided to play god with his life and save him from the death that would have been his without her interference. The woman that had stolen the peace of death from him.

 

"Yes, sir." The thoroughly chastised male croaked from the other side of the compound, through the speaker. Bane said nothing and waited while Jesse told him what he obviously did not want to share.

 

"The documents within the encryption were...Uh they were like a dream diary. Or a journal of fantasies," Jesse paused, hoping that his leader would not continue to invade his friend's deepest most secrets and using him to do it. Bane waited silently, not trusting himself to say anything. Jesse cleared his throat. "Most of them are theories or thoughts centered around one person. The rest is written fantasies."

 

"Who is the subject?" Bane asked in mild interest. The inner workings of the female brain had always fascinated him.

 

"Well, sir," Jesse hesitated. "You are."

 

There was silence, before: "Tell me more."

 

\------------

 

Liz was anxious. She had never been one for idleness and being locked in a plain room with nothing to do was going to drive her insane, sooner rather than later. So, instead of losing what little sense she had left, she employed her only resource available to calm herself.

Yoga had helped her find a sliver of peace when her temper ran roughshod over her. It had been her mother's solution to her school fights. Karate had been her father's. Between the two, Liz had been able to control her emotions enough to function.

 

So Liz did yoga in her plain cell. The overhead light had been turned on a few hours ago and the sun was just starting to paint the sky the colors of evening. She cleared her head and flowed from one stretch to another, hampered slightly by her work clothes.

 

She closed her eyes and drifted mentally while she enjoyed the liberating stretch in her spine. She faced the floor with her stocking feet planted firmly on the ground wide apart, her palms stabilizing her torso, so that her back and inner thighs could be pulled from their cramped positions. She breathed deeply and let herself sway a little, even while she missed the click of her prison door opening. The beat of a song she knew came to mind and she let it settle her nerves.

 

She lost herself in her thoughts, finding that resignation and submission inside her. Before playing with Dom's at Cam's favorite clubs, Liz had not know what to call the peace she found in herself that was beyond meditation. But ever since, she had reached for the comforting subspace that she could touch on occasion during yoga, while imagining her perfect Dom demanding the positions of her.

 

A male throat cleared from behind her. It yanked her from the subspace she had been sinking into, very rudely, making her snappish. She did not look to see the man, assuming it was Barsad. She snarled silently at how she was currently giving him a bit of a show, her skirt having raised to only a few inches below her buttocks.

 

"Well, what? You just gonna stand there and stare at my ass all night?" Liz snapped, still wanting to return to the glimpse of subspace she had just had. She brought her hands up from the floor, balancing delicately, preparing to send Barsad off with an ear full.

 

"Miss Tsoukalos." A mechanical rasp of a voice spoke out into the silence. A voice that she thought was forever gone but for YouTube footage of his legendary speeches.

 

The shock disrupted her fragile balance and her weight tilted forward, sending her into a clumsy landing.

 

\----------------   
To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own anything. And thanks to my secret Beta, who won't be reading this. Lol

Bane stood in the doorway of her cell, struck dumb by the sight that greeted him upon opening her door. Bane had expected many things from prisoners. He had seen many ways of coping with stress. He expected crying, pacing, sleeping, fussing, planning. All but this.

 

She stood bent at the waist facing away from him. Her pleated midnight blue skirt had raised high in her positioning at the back and blocked her sight in the front. Seamed thigh high stockings encased legs that were spread, almost in invitation, and made her legs seem impossibly long. They were black and topped with black lace where they stopped and revealed a coy sliver of creamy thigh. Her oyster grey button down shirt had ridden up and showed the dimples and valley of her spine. Her unnatural black hair brushed the floor in time with her hypnotic sways, making her skirt rise and fall in taunting millimeters.

 

Bane had never felt lust as acutely in this moment than he had in many years. It gripped him by the throat and mind, refusing to let go. His eyes, unable to tear themselves from the sight she provided, despite his rational mind demanding that he be a gentleman. But no amount of hormone diluting Venom could override that sight after what he just learned. He tried to clear the lump in his throat to no avail.

 

Who are you? His mind whispered, while his pulse quickened and it took everything in him not to drop the plate in his hands and fill them instead with her hips. Her hips that swayed to a silent beat of music, hypnotizing him like a snake charmer with a cobra.

 

His eyes fluttered shut, a last defence against her, only to be filled with the echoing ideas placed in his mind by Jesse's revelations about the woman before him. He came here to prove the other man wrong. That no woman could possibly love a man she knew nothing of. That no woman could find him attractive, not the monster he was. That no woman could possibly fantasize about a man like him.

 

He had fornicated with the occasional woman over the years. All were daughters, sisters, nieces of League men. They had all been aware of their duty and had been given the choice to spend a handful of nights in his bed or to decline with no repercussions. None had declined, even when they trembled before him, their gazes adverted, scared of the monster that he appeared. He lost his appetite for them, always seeing their flinches and their frightened eyes. There had been two women who did not fear him but they were impassive and seemed nearly bored with his actions, even when he managed to wrench pleasure out of them. It had been years since he last touched a woman for pleasure. The years crept up on him and kicked him in the gut with the desire that he had repressed.

 

"Miss Tsoukalos." His throat croaked out, hoping that if he opened his eyes to see her appropriately positioned, he could tell himself it was all in his imagination. That such a woman did not exist.

 

He opened his eyes to see her in a crumpled heap on the floor. It seemed she had somersaulted and landed awkwardly, all the grace of her previous movements gone. He watched as she brought her head up, starting at his feet and slowly making their way up his body.

 

The pictures he had of her hanging over his desk did not do her nature justice. She was not pretty like the rich women of Gotham. Nor was she striking like Talia and her mother. But she did have something that was unique. It was not so much in her features, which could be described as attractive but regular.

 

Her hair was shoulder length and straight, but acted as though it wanted to be wavy and had been tamed otherwise. Her skin hinted only slightly to her greek heritage but only allowed a slight olive tint. Her lips were full enough and flushed red making her mouth becoming. But it was her eyes that made her stand out. Bane had always thought brown eyes plain, but hers held a special vulnerability that called to him. She had smudged them with black and charcoal, making the earthy color of them seem like the only spots of color on an otherwise monochromatic canvas.

 

She stared at him with parted lips and legs, her skirt crumpled around her thighs. She looked at him as if he was both a ghost and a god. A tear welled in one black-lined brown eye and slowly trailed down her smooth cheek, as a smile nearly twitched at her lips. She held a slim hand up to her mouth to cover her gaping lips, showing him dark painted nails, blood crusted around one cuticle.

 

The plate in Bane's hands trembled slightly at the sudden overwhelming joy in her eyes.

 

\----------------

 

Liz couldn't believe what she was seeing. Her breath was caught in her chest like a vice had been put around her. All she could do was stare. He is alive. He is alive. He is here. Oh god. Is this real? Is he real?

 

She did not consciously decide to stand, but she did. Her body moved towards him in shaky steps, as if drawn to him through magnetism only. Her bare feet stumbled closer, eyes focused on his face. She hardly noticed the plate in his hands being transferred to the table, his fingers twitching in agitation at his sides.

 

His mask was just as she had seen, but seemed shallower in dimension than video and pictures had portrayed. She could see the shadow of his mouth and lips behind the grating.

Her eyes swept up the finger-like tubes to the stabilizing strap across the bridge of his nose and then to his eyes.

 

In all the pictures she knew him from, there had always been dark smudges of sleeplessness beneath his eyes. Those smudges were nearly completely gone, making him look healthier than he had during The Occupation. In the bright shine of the overhead fluorescents, she had her first glimpse of his eye color, only to find that she could not pinpoint which color they favored more. They seem both parts blue, grey, and green.

 

She came to a stop, barely a foot from him, focused on his eyes and mask, unable to tear her eyes away. Am I dreaming? She had to touch him. Had to know he existed and it was not a figment of her imagination. It wouldn't be the first time she dreamt of him so vividly.

 

She brought her hand up from her stomach, where it had rested as if the thought of him not being real made her sick to her stomach. Her fingers reached slowly, as if moving too quickly would make him disappear in a flash of mist. She held her breath as her fingertips were but inches from a tube.

 

Bane's reactions were lighting fast, a blur, like a cat swatting prey. One muscled hand wrapped around her wrist in a bruising grip making the tiny bones grate beneath his grasp. His right hand clamped around her throat, closing just enough to make her throat barely touch inside. She gasped and felt the air clog above his fingers.

 

His eyes bored into her in furious warning. His grip twitched around her neck warning her as she held her hand still in the air close to his mask. She could almost feel his hot breath ghosting out of his mask and caressing her fingertips. She had tensed when he had moved so quickly but stilled and relaxed beneath his grip. There was no other option to her but to relax, so firmly he held her.

 

He is real. He is alive. His palm was warm and dry with rough calluses. It was slightly meaty in muscle that showed that he likely had more strength in his little finger than she had in her whole body. His skin was rough against the paper-thin skin of her throat.

 

She knew the threat, nay the promise, of death in his eyes and she accepted it. She knew death had been a possibility since her initial capture. Statistics taught to women in self defense classes said that if you were taken from your original site, the odds of death exponentially increased. That she be killed by her obsession would only be fitting irony. Not to mention the primal woman in her wanted to submit to the undeniable alpha male aura that currently surrounded her.

 

She knew that her pulse fluttered fast beneath his palm, an instinctual fear of death raising her heart rate. But all she could feel was disappointment. Disappointment that now, when she had finally met him, she would die. That he would kill her and she would never know this moment as a memory to keep her warm on cold night in her elder years.

 

Her disappointment must have shown in her eyes because his brows creased as he frowned at her, confusion coloring his changeable eyes. He gave a testing tightening of her throat and she closed her eyes in a languid blink. At least he will be the last thing I see.

 

His hand slowly loosened in infinitesimal amounts, pulling from her skin like cold molasses. His grip on her wrist stayed until his right hand hovered above her chest, still curved as if ready to reattach to her throat. She pulled in a slow and much needed breath, blinking at him as if not understanding what changed his mind.

 

She made the mistake of blinking, her eyes opening to find him gone, leaving her standing in a faint wake of bergamot and man. The prison door closed with a slam that made her jump a few inches in the air. She could hear his echoing stomps continue down the stone hall until she could no longer hear the thumps of his boots on the ground.

 

What the fuck just happened?

 

\----------------

 

Bane did not know what emotion forced him down the hallways at a furious pace. His boot heels echoing loudly with his stomping steps on the empty stone corridor. He was only familiar with a handful of emotions, anything more complicated was beyond his grasp. But he was familiar with following his instincts and those were the ones that told him to flee. That he had danced with danger long enough and retreat was the only move left to him, for to stay would spell destruction. At least he assumed those were instincts.

 

He hated to admit it to himself, but the societally stunted part of him feared her, she had such power over him and she knew of it. Otherwise, she would not have attempted to touch me. It is a ploy, one to destroy the League and me in it. The League had taught him to fear the power of women over men, that it was easy for a man, unaware, to fall into the black widow's net and be devoured. He could not afford such distractions.

 

He knew it was a weakness in him, one for women and kindness. Women were rare as hen's teeth in The Pit, Talia and her mother being the only ones he had ever been aware of during his long stay. He faintly remembered his mother; soft, gentle, and comforting. He awoke sometimes, his ears still echoing with her long forgotten lullabies. Talia's mother had been a picture of female delicacy. He had answered her silent call for a protector of her child, who was a handful. He had learned from her that women were not capable of fending for themselves and that often times they submitted to their lot in life, unlike men who bucked under oppression. Young Talia had taught him the kindness and companionship of females. The pure soul soothing touch of another human being that was so very lacking in his daily life.

 

But Bane had been too old for Talia's childhood gentleness to make a large impact of his developed characteristics. He had not known until he was once again amongst others how different he was. But it was when he saw a child trying to share his sandwich with one of thousands of feral dogs in Moscow's streets that he understood what he was. He had stood in the shadows, watching dog and boy for near on an hour before he could take no more of the sight.

 

The boy offered pieces of sandwich to the starving mutt, the dog so afraid of kindness it shook and snarled, but wanting that kindness more than the breath in its lungs. The boy tried and tried to get the dog closer and closer to no avail and eventually threw it a piece before leaving. The dog waited until none were around before snatching up the piece and disappearing as soon as it had appeared, growling even though none were near it. Bane was emotionally one of those starving, emaciated feral dogs, famished for love and food, ready to bite any hand that gave hope. Frightened of the consequences of giving in. He was used to relying upon only himself and his mind.

 

All assumed he had always been a strong man. That he had always been his current state of muscle definition and height, but it couldn't have been further from the truth. The Pit did not feed its prisoners anything that had any hopes of supporting muscle on a grown man let alone a growing body. They fed rice and broth, a luxury item amongst them was the occasional piece of dried fruit or meat. He had been thin all throughout his tenure in Pena Dura. He was not exactly a tall man, coming barely into the range of average and as a youngster he was lean and wiry in muscle, eyes like a starving creature. The Pit had been hell's kennel, turning bad men into monsters, boys into squabbling beasts over the smallest morsel of food or comfort. The first sign of weakness brought the pack of feral men upon the victim, tearing at metaphysical and sometimes physical throats of their neighbors and allies.

 

Bane had always been a child and man of extraordinary mental and physical flexibility. In his late childhood and well into his teens, he found ways to fashion weapons from nearly anything, even the scant resources of The Pit. And he always found ways to hide said weapons on his person for protection. If that did not deter the attacker, he then used strategy and agility to succeed. It was not Bane's muscle that kept him alive in The Pit, it was his mind. It was the only thing that had been well fed by the Doctor's smuggled books. He had learned early that regardless of size or strength, every man was mortal.

 

Despite all the many years since the hard existence in The Pit, that which made the League training seem nearly a vacation, he was still that snapping starving animal inside. Untamed and hungry for a kind hand. An honest hand. One that wouldn't strike him as soon as pet him. Yes, he had been saved from the primal resources of third-world prison life, and yes, he had been polished and pruned into a League soldier, but he was still that feral emaciated mutt, fatherless, motherless, and unwanted.

 

His steps faltered as he strode down the hallways towards his chambers. A constricting sensation took over his body. His chest and stomach aching like a giant twisting his innards into bows. He put a stabilizing hand to the nearest wall as his legs wanted to buckle. He gasped past the feeling, frightened over what he felt. He knew of no disease or side effect he could be experiencing that could cause such a thing in him. Never had he felt something so strongly.

 

What is wrong with me? He asked himself, eyes wide in fear. He breathed in and out hoping that his physical pain would not leap upon him in this moment. He feared the pain more than anything. He retraced his previous steps mentally and was further staggered and angered at his findings.

 

His want for that kind hand was what caused such physical weakness in him. He wanted to feel a woman's hand seek him, to be wanted and cherished, not used and abused. He wanted. That is what this is. Desire. Not just physical desire but emotional.

 

Once he identified the reason for his sudden attack it became manageable without fear and panic making it intensify. The subject of his sudden resurgence of emotion was clear to him and his mood shifted towards anger, that ever familiar friend of his. The fury that some strange slip of a woman could have such an effect upon him infuriated him, for anger was an acceptable emotion for him to feel.

 

He released a snarling growl and punched the brick wall that mocked his weakness and his need of its assistance, the snarling feral beast in him returning with the mercurial emotions of Venom backing it. He continued to stomp towards his chambers.

 

She haunted him through the doorways and security points through the compound. The feel of her pulse beneath his palm, fluttering like a caught finch. He had not known what to do with the power that surged through him at her submission to his choking grip. It was different to have her beneath his influence, she did not fight it like all the others. She gave in and gave to his whim. His fingers twitched with the ghost touches that she might possibly supply him if he only gave into the want still clenching in his chest. That she might give him but a taste of such kindness.

 

His rooms were nearly as he had left them, a laptop and thick file on his desk, being the only new additions. His shrewd eyes scanned the rest of the room and found everything to be exactly as his photographic memory told him it should be. He paced for a few moments, trying to shake himself loose from the voice in his head whispering temptations in his ear. His eyes continued to be drawn to the stack of papers and the laptop. Read them, know her secrets, know the dirty things that she wants when she thinks of you. His mind whispered, sounding like a lecherous fiend.

 

The walls of his resistance knew only a short siege before the fiend won the battle and Bane found himself sitting at his desk, file in hand, looking for the password to her encryptions.

 

He nearly laughed out loud when it was revealed that her encryption code was centered around three words: Bane's bondage bitch.

 

\----------------------

 

Liz stood, eyes wide, body and emotions reeling. She stared blankly at the wall where Bane had once stood, his absence causing a vacuum.

 

He is alive. And he touched you. She staggered back and found her ass hitting the cold steel of a bolted chair. She blinked again, unsure of what she felt or thought. Or what she should do, what any of this meant.

 

As she tried to sort through the racing thoughts and emotions, her stomach rolled, reminding her of her hunger. The scent of food caused her body to work absently at making her hands scoop food with the supplied pita-like flatbread. They had given her no utensils even plastic, but she expected they thought her capable of fashioning weapons from them. They had no clue that now that she had spied her obsession, she had no intent of leaving. She scooped up the exotically spiced rice and chicken dish to her mouth, hardly tasting what she was sure a delicious dish, in favor of wondering where Bane had gone.

 

She had been sure that he had softened in those few moments of holding her only by his presence and his loosening grip on her wrist. She knew no obvious reason for him to have left so abruptly. She had not fought back, she had not said anything. She only awaited his verdict, staring into his eyes, listening to his rasping breath. She closed her eyes, her skin breaking out in goose pimples, remembering the surge of tingling arousal at his touch. She had dreamt of his touch for years, blowing it well out of proportion, only to find it more real and enchanting than fantasy. She had thought herself dreaming until he had grabbed her, his reality shocking her from her dream-like state and into one of wakeful realization. 

 

A squeaking awoke her from her ruminations, her hand now pushing her food around her flimsy paper plate. Her head snapped up, hoping, wishing to see Bane's large imposing form in the doorway. Nothing. In fact, no one seemed to be there. She could see and hear out into the hallway.

 

Silence and plain beige walls like her cell. Liz battled inside about what to do. She wanted nothing more to run after Bane and prostrate herself at his feet, pleading to do so much as wash his dirty socks. But the echoing warning in Barsad's voice stayed her.

 

She stood and walked to the door, tiptoeing as if she had to sneak. She stuck her head out of the opening that the door had swung open to provide, looking both ways up and down the hallway. No one. Not even a moth buzzing at the screened overhead lights. An alarm did not sound at her head pushing through the doorway and no men in uniforms came to drag her back into her cell. She waited and listened, wondering when the security crew that surely watched her contemplating a quasi-escape, using the camera in her cell, would rat her out. Still nothing.

 

She slid back into her cell and stood at the doorway wondering what to do. Reason told her to act as if she had no idea that the door was open. A good captive was one who stayed put and did not rock the boat. Her gut told her that these men had no qualms about torture and disciplining prisoners. But the gnawing ache in her chest beckoned her to follow Bane. To find him and refuse to be parted from him now that she had found him. His absence had grown into a black hole, threatening to suck everything in sight into it unless she found him.

 

But she asked herself what she always asked herself when she could not decide: What can I live with? Can I live with myself if I stayed here and let him slip away from me again? Even if it means pain and suffering?

 

Her answer was yes and no. Yes, she would endure anything. And no, she could not live with herself if she stayed behind.

 

She popped her head out of the doorway with renewed bravery. She promised herself that she would offer no resistance if they found her and returned her to her cell and that she would try her hardest to avoid punishment. She reminded herself of the hard summer she had spent with a very experienced Dom who was extremely exacting upon her. He had punished her for even the smallest of slights, teaching her body to manage pain and challenges. She told herself that she would do the same as she had then, find her subspace and endure. She had yet to find true pleasure in pain like a good submissive, but she had also never found a man that set her senses aflame with his mere presence.

 

Until Bane, her brain whispered with a fan-girl coo. That affirmed in her mind, she pushed her cell door open.

 

Nothing happened as she stepped out into the hallway, her eyes watching the faint shadows that the lights did not touch. The stones beneath her feet were cold, chilling her toes in their nylons. She spun in a circle, wondering if she might have a sudden bout of luck and find a pair of socks lying about. She looked back at her cell, wondering if she should just give up, when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Her shoes. She nearly laughed aloud at the odds that they would take her shoes from her but would leave them so close. Her lips twitched as she slid her feet into the tall black patent leather stilettos. Won't be sneaking around for long in these.

 

She looked up and down the hall again, still seeing no security stopping her. She took a steeling breath before striding in the direction she assumed Bane had gone.

 

\----------------------

 

Bane ran a sweating palm over his thigh, accidentally pulling the fabric that attempted to constrain the now tented profile of his tactical pants. He swallowed thickly at the faint sensations that the motion had caused. He looked away from the laptop screen that featured the unfiltered thoughts of a young woman's brain regarding himself. Never had he realized how a woman could see or think of a man in such erotic and explicit detail.

 

Her ramblings had ranged from innocent things like why he seemed to talk with his hands to lecherous thoughts on if the size of his combat boot related to the size of something else. He had never had a clue that women's' minds could be just a filthy as a man's. His enlightenment had been beyond purely educational.

 

And then he found the section that featured, in great detail, her dreams about him. Which also ranged from heart wrenching accounts of her wailing over his dead and mutilated body to just as detailed accounts of positions and maneuvers that she had dreamt.

 

In the end, he did not know what to think. His mind was whirling with logical processing of what he learned and explicit flashes of how his mind created pictures to go with her words. His body was surging, as if he had a live electrical current going through him. Every touch to his skin was hypersensitive and the primal part of his brain howled at him to give into his body's desire and fist the lust away; as was his usual actions when faced with physical desire.

 

His fingers twitched along with his indecision, his eyes still drawn back to the sordid words glowing on the screen of her computer. He slammed the lid closed after finding his eyes reading again a passage on how she imagined him fingering her, followed by her admittance that she had later fingered herself to such thoughts. He tore himself from the temptation of her words, trying to breathe reason back into his head.

 

He knew this type of lust, this feeling filling him and demanding his attention. He had felt it the first time he had seen a picture of a naked woman, a picture smuggled, coveted, and hidden in the flyleaf of one of Doctor's books in The Pit. He had been fourteen and had been enlightened to know that there was no doubt that he was inherently attracted to women. Having been in The Pit since before puberty, it was a welcome relief to him.

 

Submission not being an automatic response in him, he knew only one tried and true way to deal with his desires other than the obvious. He took a deep, Venom saturated breath and prepared himself for leaving the compound.

 

He checked the laces on his boots, fussed with his pants, and adjusted himself enough for his state of mind not to be obvious to passersby. He pulled up his shirt and tightened his back brace, making sure it was firmly in place, seeing as driving seemed to aggravate his back injuries. He pulled on a wrist brace for his right hand, now that it ached and throbbed from his fit of temper, and tightened it into place. He slipped his piecemeal flak vest over his head and clipped the straps into place, knowing he was a wanted man that had few allies. Snipers taking pot-shots at him were nothing new. He slipped a light canvas jacket over himself, knowing that while he always ran warm, risking a chill while in a desert area at night were not the smartest things. India in the winter at night could get quite cold if one was unprepared. He dropped a few items into his pant pockets, things he never went without. He then took a thin cream and black scarf off a hook on the wall by his door. He wrapped it carefully around his head and face, covering his mask and looking no different than many of the locals. Keys in hand, Bane left his room, planning on driving the city until he felt in control again before doing some reassuring patrolling of the base's security.

 

\-----------------

 

Liz was lost. She knew it and anyone that came across her would surely know it. She had not the faintest idea where Bane had gone, nor where his rooms might be. At first, her liberation had been quite easy, only one option at a time as to the direction he could have gone, but the further she snuck into the compound, the more the hallways turned into a rat's nest of twists and turns, all the hallways looking nearly alike. Now she stood in a dog leg that forked off into three other hallways, each with the flickering of candlelight and the echoing voices of men. She could see doorways that must have lead to somewhere like private rooms or common areas, which meant discovery should she pass them. It wasn't as if she could just pop her head in and ask directions.

 

She took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. She turned and contemplated returning to her cell before they realized she had left. A sound from behind her startled out of her contemplations and the approaching footsteps gave her but one option, forward.

 

She jetted forward, tip-toeing in her heels hoping that the click wouldn't give her away. She spied an alcove in the wall, just deep enough that they might not notice her. It wasn't exactly shadowed and was clearly a crappy hiding spot, but it was all she had without passing an open door and giving herself away. She scooted into it and pressed herself against the wall, nearly holding her breath while she heard the footsteps joining voices that got closer and closer.

 

She soon identified the two voices which caused her to roll her eyes. Barsad and the Eastern European guy that had helped in her kidnapping, Slav. She listened to their conversation, hoping to pick up what they were talking about. She soon found herself frowning at the foreign words being repeated back and forth, almost as if Barsad was being taught Slav's language. Barsad would start to talk, be interrupted by Slav repeating a word, and Barsad trying to mimic him. Slav seemed to have the patience of a saint while he tried to un-butcher his native language. Liz listened to them slowly but surely get progressively closer and closer to her hiding spot. During their stilted conversation, Liz thought she heard a metallic click, but thought nothing of it as the men seemed to give it no mind.

 

Until she was looking down the barrel of Barsad's black steel gun, pointed between her eyes. His finger hovered over the trigger and he hesitated just enough to register who she was before shooting her dead. His eyes went from cold calculating killer to frowning confusion and finally resting on exacerbated frustration.

 

"Hi," She said quietly after Barsad lowered his gun to her torso, but did not put it away. She slowly raised her open palms for him to see that she had no weapon and was therefore not a threat. He did not seem to believe her. She hadn't known what else to say to a man who held a gun on her in her hiding spot and show him that she had no intention of giving him a fight. Slav had thought her greeting was amusing and gave a rough snort before consulting Barsad in the language their conversation had been in. Or so Liz thought, she had never been very good at deciphering European languages or accents. She blamed it on being American, everyone else did.

 

"How did you get out?" Barsad asked her, his frustration giving him deep frowning creases. She frowned back at him, not liking how he made it sound as if she was a wayward pet. She put her hands on her hips in mild defiance.

 

"I will have you know that the door was open." She answered, only to be nearly pulled off her feet when he yanked her out of the alcove by her elbow. Slav followed quietly, seeming to be entertained by the unexpected proceedings, while Barsad growled what Liz assumed were colorful cuss words in what sounded like Arabic.

 

Liz followed along with a despondent sigh, knowing that she was surely going straight back to her cell, with or without new bruises. Barsad dragged her by her arm, pinching the nerve in her elbow, his gun still not put away.

 

"Hey, take it easy!" She objected. "I'm going ok? No need to be rough." She mumbled. Slav commented from behind her, seeming to understand her words and putting his two cents in. Barsad blew a gustily breath out of his flared nostrils, brow still deeply creased. Slav commented again, seeming to be arguing her side of things if his tone was anything to go on. Granted for all she knew he could be trying to convince his comrade to let him beat the crap out of her. Barsad yanked her to a stop, nearly pulling her completely off balance. He stared her down, judging her and seeming to look into her very thoughts. He must have seen the sudden fear in her eyes, as he nodded once before slowly releasing her arm.

 

"I am taking you back." He holstered his gun but left the keeper strap undone as if in silent warning that he still hadn't counted out shooting her. She felt like she could breathe again, even if her hands shook with the rush of fear staring down the barrel of a loaded gun had given her. "Do not fight." He said unnecessarily, his blue eyes narrowing at her. She nodded and waited for his direction. He stared at her with expectation for a moment before huffing a frustrated grunt and leading her by her arm again, though his grip was much gentler this time.

 

Slav gave a running commentary behind her, all the while fluctuating between sounding concerned and amused. She found her mind drifting somewhat, not needing to focus on her whereabouts as Barsad guided her with efficiency through the halls. She had heard that Bane hired many diverse people, especially if they brought a skill to the table, but she couldn't help the nagging curiosity at where each man had originated.

 

While still walking, she turned her head over her shoulder and addressed him. "I hope this isn't offensive, but where are you from?" She said, her voice soft in hoping that her tone would negate the blunt question. Slav stopped his ramblings that Barsad seemed to be hearing but made no improvement on his mood. His face went slack for a nanosecond before he grinned.

 

"A small town in Ukraine." He said proudly and in heavily accented English. His bright hazel eyes danced merrily and made a charming picture with his white teeth and dark blond hair. She imagined that he charmed the pants off many women, but she only gave him a quirk of her lips.

 

"I guessed eastern Europe." She admitted, ignoring the low grumblings of Barsad, who made no attempt to make her focus on their trip back to her cell. She gave him a sheepish look, which he seemed to ignore in favor of nodding his head at her guess. She tried to wiggle her right arm out of Barsad's loose grip only for it to tighten in warning. She rolled her eyes and huffed. "I'm Liz. You are?"

 

"His name is of no importance to you, Miss Tsoukalos." That indescribably divine mechanical voice rasped. Shivers swept down her spine as she slowly turned her attention back to the front. Barsad had ground to a halt in the hallway and turned towards where Bane stood, filling a dark hallway that Liz had forsaken in her quest.

 

He stood, wearing all his regalia, except the infamous shearling coat he had sported in Gotham and had added a black and cream scarf that hide all but his eyes. It was the fury that echoed in his growling voice and the shuttered coldness in his eyes that made her muscles tighten in another surge of fear. He looked angry, much like he had when he had left her cell, only his body seemed to hold a new tension that radiated from him.

 

"I found her wandering the halls, sir." Barsad said quietly, not in fear just soft spoken. He seemed to be a man not likely to yell or talk loudly. Liz found her attention almost solely focused on the angry behemoth before her. Bane's eyes flicked down to where Barsad held on to her arm, causing the other male to release her as if she suddenly burned him. He even shifted away from her, seeming to read the unreadable look in Bane's eyes. Bane's eyes flicked back up to Liz's face and stared at her for a moment, all three of them holding their breath for the impending explosion. "Shall I take her back?"

 

Bane's eyes flicked to Barsad, who Liz commended for not flinching. "No." Rasped out with the finality of death sentence. Liz felt true fear of her obsession then, knowing that anger in a strong male was not a safe thing to be around and after sensing the flinch in Barsad next to her, she knew it was more so with Bane.

 

Bane took two thudding steps forward, Barsad and Slav drifting backwards away from his volatile presence. Bane stared at her a moment before grasping her by the back of her shirt and propelling her through the halls.

 

As fear flooded her veins and made keeping up with his long strides even more difficult, she looked back once more at Barsad and Slav. Slav looked resigned and Barsad held a silent sad apology in his eyes for her. She knew then that she had poked the bear that needed no poking to attack and felt all the blood drain from her body.

 

As she mentally said goodbye to her friends and the last straggling remainders of her family that had not perished in the many chaotic attacks upon Gotham, her lips felt numb and her legs wobbled. She did not see the sumptuous architecture that made up the compound that had obviously once been a sultan's sprawling palace, nor did she notice that many of the doors and hallways she was pushed through were dark and unlighted. She had known earlier, when he had wrapped his hand around her throat that he had no compunction against killing her, but she now feared what she had not feared previously. She feared a painful death, one from hours of beating if his roiling temper was anything to go by.

 

He forced her to a halt outside a closed door, before fiddling with the handle, and nearly throwing her inside. Lights sprung to life inside, Bane propelling her with a gripping fist to her back. She stumbled forward while he slammed the door closed so hard she was sure she heard something crack. She had expected him to still have hold of her shirt and was about to use his grip to help her right herself, only to find it gone, catching the pointed toe of her shoe on an ornate Persian carpet and nearly face planting on the floor. She slowly righted herself, wishing she could just kneel on the floor in a sub's pose and take the impending beating.

 

She had once been a situation that, while it didn't reach this level of frightening, it had been similar. Her training Dom had found that she had lied about where she had been. He had been beyond pissed; though looking back now, he was nothing compared to the anger rolling off Bane. He had yelled at her for well over an hour before punishing her severely, especially after she had tried to placate him.

 

She kept her eyes to the floor, hoping that eye contact would not bring his fury upon her. She was willing to try anything. Bane's scarf fluttered to the floor by the door, likely nearly ripped from his head in angry movements. She steeled herself from flinching when he came to stand three feet from her, all but his torso visible to her peripheral. His fingers flicked, his index finger pointing to a spot near the center of the carpet, just a second before he started to pace the length of the room. Liz took the unintentional cue and shifted to the spot on the floor he had indicated.

 

As he walked from her, Liz felt as though she could almost breathe again. Her eyes were drawn to his steady steps that thudded against carpet after carpet. She watched his scuffed combat boots flex and fly with each of his long strides across carpet after carpet. She could see the corner of a mattress, resting on a low wood platform, weighing down a ruby colored carpet to her right. An emerald one stretched a lean length along the wall before her and stopping just before an alcove tucked by the door to her left. A series of mix-matched desks made an L through the alcove and snaking towards the bed, most sitting upon the emerald carpet. Beneath her own feet was a sapphire carpet, detailed with flowers and cream borders. The carpet was dense and velveteen beneath her heels.

 

As Bane paced, Liz wondered if perhaps he was not going to beat her to death after all. It seemed to her that he was attempting to gain control of his temper and if the lessening of the stifling atmosphere was any clue, it was successful. And while he still paced with some enthusiasm, Liz felt safe enough to give in to some of her curiosity.

 

She looked up and was fascinated by the wall of desks that ended only for a window that sat parallel to the bed. The alcove and the desk tucked within it was covered in discarded guns, bullets, gun magazines, and what looked to be the timing mechanisms for bombs. The next desk featured text books offering a variety of subjects and held a desktop computer. On the wall above it showed pictures of her, printouts of her diploma and driver's license, and other papers that she was sure would spell out her entire life. A turn-of-the-century rolling wooden chair sat at the final desk, one that was home to a scattered pile of papers, her laptop, and the occasional piece of medical equipment, along with a set of discarded tools that looked like those that jewelers use; a loupe, small pliers, tiny screwdriver, and something that looked like a miniaturized torture device. But it was an empty syringe that caught her attention, remembering an episode of CSI where the killer had injected the victim with air. If I need to get away, if things get bad and I have the chance, I can use it. The reassurance of having an exit strategy calmed her even though she knew in her heart of hearts that she could never kill him.

 

Her attention returned to her obsession as she noticed his pacing had stopped. He stood with his feet apart staring at her. She gulped, not knowing if the intensity of his stare and the repetitive fisting of his fingers meant that he was still pissed or not. She made eye contact, still glad that he was at least ten feet from her, and could see that while he seemed to have a better grasp upon his anger, he was still nowhere near calm enough for her to think herself out of the woods yet.

 

The rattle of the A/C unit sounded from above her and seemed to snap Bane out of staring at her. She watched him turn from her, towards his main desk covered with papers, and grab a handful of them in his thick fist. She fought not to shrink back while he swung towards her with much too efficient steps that ate up the distance between them, and threw the papers at her feet with a snarling growl.

 

She flinched at the sudden explosion of movement only to breathe again while printer paper fluttered around her calves until succumbing to gravity and falling to the floor. She could see that some of the papers were covered in words, but as they held less threat to her than the man before her, she ignored them for watching Bane.

 

His jacket hid the flexing muscles beneath his skin but did not hide the outline of his dangerous body. She could hardly see anything of him for all the clothing he wore, more than when he had come to her cell. The difference was shocking, where he had appeared almost approachable, he now looked as welcoming as a bullet to the head. He stood straighter and stiffer and if the slight twitching on the neoprene that covered his jaw, he was also grinding his teeth. He stood with his fingers gripping his flak vest, eyes dark, legs a shoulders width apart, looking like a deadly weapon.

 

But he also looked so much like he had in the few videos that people had posted on YouTube of him. So much so that her heart gave a pang and she was reminded of her attraction to him. Fear and attraction swirled in her veins and made her nearly drunk. She watched the thick muscle in one of his thighs flex as he shifted impatiently on his feet, feeling a flush of desire sweep through her and settle in her pelvis. Her skin was chilled by the cold air flowing down on to her from the vent above, but a mild warmth had settled into her belly.

 

He took a hand off his vest and pointed at the papers on the floor. "Explain." He rasped mechanically before plopping into the wooden desk chair. The chair squealed in protest to his weight while he sat, knees spread, one arm draped over the worn wooden arm. His eyes bored into her and commanded her obedience like no Dom could ever replicate.

 

She blinked before letting her eyes drift to the floor to look at the papers at her feet. Dread settled into the forefront of her brain, hoping he was not pissed about the Feds. Her eyes drifted over the papers wishing that the answer to calming him lay in those printed words at her feet. As her eyes focused on the words she could make out from where she stood, her eyes widened before she was overcome with the sudden wish that he had murdered her in her cell.

 

\---------

 

Bane watched as she stood, nearly shaking in fear in the middle of his bedroom. He still could not tell which emotion that warred inside him was stronger; anger or lust. Anger that made him want to throttle her until the spell that she had weaved around him broke, the one that had shattered his perfectly molded existence of little emotion. Or the lust that made him want to grab her, rip the clothes from her and rut between her creamy thighs; whether she was willing or not. Either way he did not trust himself to touch her and thus hoped that being seated nearly ten feet from her would help him evade temptation.

 

He didn't know why he wanted her to explain her explicit ramblings. He already knew from her 'dear diary' entries that she didn't know why she was so attracted to him, or why she logged each and every thought she had about him, just that she was compelled to. Perhaps he just wanted to hear her admit her fetish, to hear the words from her mouth that she wanted him and only him. Perhaps he wanted her to say the deviant things that had ran rampantly through her mind and give him full rights to use her as his body begged him to.

 

No. No, I must not give in. Such a thing is for weaker men. She is not but a conniving succubus, to submit to her would be failure. She means nothing to me. She is nothing. He repeated to himself, hoping that he would come out of this fight with her, stronger than a normal man. His men had held him to such a high esteem for so long, commending his weakness to nothing. He was a symbol of strength and an idol to many of them. To succumb to such a common a distraction as sex, would surely show them that he was not in fact stronger and better than them. That he was but a man, one that could feel cold, hot, pain, and death. And though he often chafed under the idolization and near cult-like following that his men bestowed upon him, their devotion gave him power. Power that he was not so sure he wanted to give up.

 

He raked his eyes over her from foot to head while she was distracted with the papers he had thrown at her. Her shoes were glossy impractical things, but still sensual in their lines. He had always wondered how women could walk in such contraptions, but he had never found it in him to dissuade them. He liked how those impractical heels made Lizbeth's calves and thighs flex with each movement. They made her ankles look graceful and delicate and her feet dainty. Her legs surrounded by the line-back stockings, a throwback from an earlier era, gave off the softest rasp every time her legs touched and rubbed against the other. Her midnight blue pleated skirt, now that it was in its proper positioning, was a modest lower-than-mid-thigh, but kept her thighs hidden from his gaze. Something he would not mind seeing again. Her charcoal dress shirt was mussed from his manhandling of her and was also modestly buttoned, showing only a sliver of humiliation darkened décolletage. But there was nothing modest about how the cold air of his room made her nipples peak against her shirt and taunt him.

 

He was thankful that the fear was slowly leaving her and a dark part of him reveled in her embarrassment. He had seen his fair number of faces drain of color, but watching her face drain of color, her eyes widen and then her face, neck, and chest color to bright pink was a new experience. And he enjoyed it. Talia had never blushed, she had much too tight a grip on her emotions for such silliness. But here was this young woman, capable of forming near porn-like scenarios, blush like a virgin. Her wide brown eyes met his, red lips opening and closing like a beached fish. She must have seen the expectation of an answer in his eyes, for she then started to plead silently. Her brown eyes alive with desperation.

 

"Speak!" He commanded harshly, his voice barking out in the silence of the room. He caught her minor flinch at the suddenness of his voice and likely was still quite afraid of raising his ire again.

 

"Its...Um...Well, I...When you...I..." She stuttered, obviously caught in a whirlwind of fear and humiliation. Her face glowed brighter for a moment while she stared at him, lost for words. Normally when someone stood before him being called accountable for their actions, stuttering and babbling annoyed him into distraction. Not Lizbeth. Not this slip of a woman, so cowed by his presence and his demands that she couldn't speak. No, he felt power. Not the same power as bringing a city to its knees. But a power that was seductive and alluring. "No one was ever supposed to read them. They were for me." She barely pieced together, her lips starting to tremble again with her fear.

 

"Why me?" The words flowed from his mouth before he could stop them. He could not deny that they resonated like the gong of Notre Dame's bells in him. And he couldn't tear his eyes from her as her face seemed to melt into surprise.

 

He watched, helpless beneath her siren gaze that darkened her brown irises and widened her pupils from the pinpoints they had previously been. He retracted his previous thought that her brown eyes were plain as they roved over him with desire. They left no part of him unwatched, unseen. From his toes in his combat boots, to his pant covered legs, to his vest, to his mask, and finally to his eyes where she stared back with a brazen lascivious that he had never seen a woman bestow upon him. An unapproved heat rose from his chest and flooded his neck and face, making him glad for the mask that covered most of his uncharacteristic blush.

 

"Why not you?" She said softly, her voice now a breathy thing that settled in his belly. He flashed a glare at her, hating the spell that she wove around him, acting as though she had no clue as to the effect she had on him. "You just have this thing about you." She started inelegantly. "Charisma, that I can't stop thinking about. I remember the first time I saw you. Standing in the stadium. I knew something was different about you than any other man I had ever seen or heard. Unlike anything," she said. Her breathy voice now sounding fanatical to his burning ears. But he could not deny that her brown eyes now shone with honesty and surety, even as her cheeks were still pink.

 

Bane scoffed, trying to reject how her words burned warmly in his chest. That starving unloved mutt in his chest howling in celebration. But he wouldn't give in to her deception. He would prove her false. He would prove her wrong, prove to her that she actually finds him disgusting like all other women. And then he could justify ending her because then she would be nothing special. He snatched a sheet of her ruminations off his desk and set about tearing down her every misconception of him.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only 2 more chapters after this one.

She paled at seeing him take the sheet in hand and bit her lip. This was her worst nightmare come to life. She would have been horrified if Jesse or Cam had ever set eyes on what she wrote, but it would never compare to this. This level of humiliation and embarrassment was surely fatal. Or at least she hoped it was.

 

She knew that if he had read even a fraction of what she had written that he had to hate her. The things she had said. The things she had him do to her. The things she did to him. There was no way that he could ever have seen her as anything but unremarkable before, now he must be disgusted with her. She was disgusted with herself half the time.

 

And then he began to read.

 

"'Fucking me from behind,'" he read a short part of one of her dreams. A horrible spear of lust lanced through her body at his utterance of such a filthy word making her breathing accelerate and heat pool between her thighs. "'I want nothing more than to wear his marks on my skin.'" He read again, shame filling every particle in her body even as the visions of such things heated her blood. "'I want him to come on my tits.'" He read another sentence from a different fantasy. Liz remembered what that one sentence had lead to. A session of her frigging herself to thoughts of his cock sliding between her breasts, his kneeling above her shouting dirty epithets at her. She blushed with the beating of her heart, her body remembering all the arousal she had felt when she had wrote those things and the orgasms that had followed.

 

He read more without bringing voice to her shameful thoughts and desires. She stood nearly trembling with embarrassment, surprised tears had not made a showing in her eyes. She gripped the pleats in her skirt to prevent herself from curling into a submissive ball on the floor. His eyes suddenly locked with hers, emotions warring within them, making their changeable colors undecipherable.

 

"You want to know what is beneath my mask?" His voice made the intensity in his eyes clear, fury had resurfaced. "Shall I tell you?" He asked. Liz couldn't draw a breath to answer for the black look he was giving her. "I am scarred and monstrous. Not the pretty boy you hoped I was." He said nastily, flicking the paper from his hands to the floor dismissively. He leaned forward in his chair, making it scream in protest again, leaning his elbows on his knees. The overhead light cast shadows on his face, making him appear deadly and dark. "You should be terrified of me." He stated darkly.

 

And a tiny light dawned in Liz's head. He wants me afraid. He wants me to hate him. Internally, she smiled, seeing his ploy. It won't work. And I'll prove it to you. Her fear faded away, if not leaving entirely, excitement and arousal filling it's place.

 

"I'm not afraid." She whispered. She watched his eyes widen in shock and his head pull back as if surprised. She nearly smiled at the emotions that raced unfiltered through his eyes as he looked at the sapphire carpet at her feet, lost in thought. Determination settled for dominance in his eyes, coloring them slightly more towards grey in the light of the lamps around the room.

 

He was slow to stand, but he unfolded himself from the chair nonetheless. He had the look of a predator, calculating and patient to spring his trap. One that she refused to fall into. She would prove her worth to him. Should nothing come of her attempts, so be it, but it will not be said that she did not prove herself to be different than what she knew he thought of her. It was obvious by his use of the word 'monstrous' that he did not see himself as she saw him. He had unwittingly thrown down a gauntlet, a challenge. One she refused to lose.

 

He slowly ambled towards her, unnerving her with his intense stare. It made her skin crawl pleasantly. He came to a stop, hung his arms from the collar on his vest, and stood a couple of feet away. She could hear the quiet hiss of his breath through the mask and wondered if he would take it off to prove to her that he was as ugly as he thought he was. Instead, he spoke.

 

\--------

 

Bane could see the desire to fidget beneath his gaze in her eyes and how her body almost twitched. But she watched him, watching her. He did not like how her brown eyes now flared with confidence, even as she continued to chew on her bottom lip. She thinks herself willing to bed me. She thinks she will submit to my desires. I shall test that, perhaps she will not find reality as titillating as fantasy. His lips pulled back into a dark smirk. I will enjoy this.

 

"Take off your shirt." He ordered, watching her for resistance. Ah, there it is. He thought, seeing the surprise and hesitation. Her lower lip slid from it's prison between her teeth, red like a cherry from her chewing. And then she did the unthinkable:

 

Without argument or outrage, her eyes locked with his as her hands slowly rose from her sides and attacked her first button. His eyes dropped to her work, watching in amazement as she followed his orders. The dark plastic button slipped from the hole with the assistance of her dexterous fingers, followed by another. And another.

 

Slowly, a swath of pale skin was revealed to him from between the charcoal edges of her shirt. She made no attempt to pull the fabric further apart, just simply unbuttoning button after button. He was transfixed by the smooth skin that hinted with a slight shadowing that her breasts would soon be visible. A stark shape cut across the creamy skin revealed to him with each move of her fingers, giving him a hint at the bra that she wore beneath. His eyes were glued to the scalloped edge of black lace that featured a little satin bow that was nestled between her breasts. Below the bow and lace, more smooth skin that flexed and moved with her breaths. Soon her belly button and finally the wide waistband of her skirt stopped his eyes from more skin. His eyes fell to the practiced movements of her hands as she unbuttoned each cuff before falling to her sides again.

 

Her dark nails grasped the now unbuttoned edges of her shirt and pulled them apart, widening the skin visible to him, like a snake shedding and revealing untouched skin. His for the taking. She pulled the edges to her sides before rolling her arms and yanking the shirt from her shoulders and letting the loosened cuffs pull the shirt to the floor.

 

Bane's eyes trailed over the slightly convex arc of her belly to the severe cut in of her waist and narrow ribcage that moved with life. His eyes came to rest upon her breasts, encased in sheer black lace, allowing her natural shape to show; unchanged from padding. Her nipples were dark berry, as if colored with blackberries and peaked with either cold or arousal, he didn't know. He tore his eyes from the hypnotizing sight of her partially obscured breasts, to meet her eyes.

 

Those brown orbs that looked back at him with a self-consciousness that she should not have. Her jaw and mouth was set with determination that soon overshadowed her shyness, making her stand straight against the onslaught of observation.

 

It had not escaped his notice that his body had warmed with arousal, want burning in his chest and groin. No, that had not left him since he had first read her diatribes. It had ebbed with his anger, but did not flee. Not with her standing so close and not with his hands nearly itching with the desire to touch her and feel her smooth skin. I want more. I want to see more.

 

"The skirt." He rasped quietly. His eyes drifting away from her face and falling to where her fingers moved to obey. She hadn't hesitated this time, only complied. He could feel her staring at him while he watched her fingers manage the clasp and zipper at one hip. He was given no building sliver of skin as she prepared to remove it. His only warning before it slithered down her stocking covered legs, was a loosening of the waistband. She pushed it down to where her hips flared out, a rolling shimmy of her hips, and her fingers with their dark nails releasing it to the floor. Black lace and dark charcoal satin hid her womanhood from his view, even though he could make out the mound and lips of what his body cried for through the satin.

 

Her panties, obviously meant to cover a reasonable amount of skin on a leaner woman, only taunted him with how they hardly seemed to cover her in front and crept up her cheeks in the back. The crease of where her hips flared, met her thighs and converged to create her buttocks, made him clench his jaw against a crippling desire to see his fingers splayed wide against that pale skin.

 

He drifted around her, taking in the sight of her standing in her unmentionables in his room. He liked the taunting glimpses of pale skin against dark lingerie. Her stockings divided her legs, making them so long even though she was not that tall of a woman. Her body had curves of health as well as the firm muscles of a fighter, making her a tantalizing mix of weak and capable. The dorsal dip of her spine curved dramatically from her forced position in her heels, her buttocks angled pertly. Breath fought its way in and out of his chest while he circled her like a wolf, taking in each and every bit that her body had to offer him.

 

And finding it harder and harder not to touch.

 

\------------------- *

 

Liz tried to suck in each breath evenly and without continually gasping. She tried valiantly, but failed miserably. She knew she must look a disheveled sight, her hair mussed and a mess from her journey to wherever 'here' was, her makeup likely smudged and running half down her face. But never had she been happier that she had left her house those many hours ago wearing a pretty, abet mix-matched, set of bra and panties. If ever there was a reason for Cam's saying, this was it; Die in something pretty, something that will make the coroner say 'damn, she was hot'. She never claimed her best friend was sane, but she was glad she had listened even once standing in the bedroom of her twisted Adonis in her underwear.

 

She fought to keep her body still as he circled her like a wolf hunting prey. She kept looking forward, fighting instinct to turn and face him at all times. She could feel where he was, about two feet away, and where he looked, everywhere but mostly at her ass and breasts. She hoped he didn't see the dimpling at her thighs or the freckles that occasionally dotted her skin. There were other things that she hoped didn't put him off her; the occasional bruise from fighting or the gym, the scar on her knee from playing with Jesse as a kid, the birthmark on her right ass cheek. All the things that made her human, and that she hated.

 

She had been sucked into her worries about being imperfect long enough that when she sensed him at her back she nearly jumped. He stood close enough that she could feel the difference in the temperature of the air. Her skin suddenly hyper aware of his presence and her breath stuttered.

 

For a moment, he just stood at her back, nearly touching, but not. She tensed, making herself not look to see what he was doing behind her. Her muscles trembled in anticipation of him touching her, but she could no longer gauge if he would do it in anger or lust.

 

At the thought of it being lust, warmth spread through her body, sweeping down her nerves until it settled between her thighs, dampening in hope of penetration. She exhaled shakily, fighting the recurring memories of the possible positions he could inflict upon her in their current arrangement.

 

"You are afraid." He grumbled over her shoulder. He sounded questioning even though his words had been a statement. Liz turned her head slightly, unable to fight the need to look at him. She couldn't see him through her hair, nor had she turned her head enough that she would have been able to see him. But it connected her to him again, despite how his standing behind her had separated them. For a moment, she wished for his direction. She missed the reassuring guidance of an experienced Dom. One who knew what he wanted and took it from her. For a man like that, she knew what was expected. She knew what he wanted from her and it was her job to give it to him. But she didn't know what Bane wanted other than to make her hate him somehow.

 

Had he been more sure of himself, she would have floated to her knees and awaited his direction. She would have worshipped his body with her mouth and hands. She would have taken any punishment he saw fit to met out upon her flesh. But this unstable and flighty Bane, she knew not what to do with other than to wait until his body language or words gave her guidance. She would play by his haltingly confusing rules until the dance became clearer to her and she could serve him as he wished without words.

 

"No," She whispered out, her senses overwhelmed with arousal and hesitancy. She stood, waiting a few seconds in cold silence for his response.

 

His hot hands snatched her wrists from her sides. He transferred both of her wrists to one fist, making her body arch back towards him. His face and mask hovered over her shoulder while his now free hand wrapped itself around her throat again, tightening suddenly. His mask pressed into her hair, hot breath puffing in and out metallically against her ear.

 

"Huuuhhnn," she groaned out, surpried by how close he was to her, touching her. The suddenness of her capture forcing sound from her throat that tilted back to accommodate his hand and the pull on her arms. She panted out breath from her positioning, endorphins rushing through her body and making the pooling heat between her thighs intensify from low arousal to full-blown, boiling lust.

 

Bane might have said something while he shifted on his feet, causing his body to just barely brush against hers. His right hand, wrapped once again around her throat, now sported a buttery leather wrist brace which bit into her skin. The canvas of his jacket was rough against the soft skin of her chest and arm where his rested against her. A cold metal button seared into her hot skin through her bra, just inches from her heart, where it pounded in her chest. The odd metal buckles of Bane's flak vest pressed into her back, giving a harsh contrast to how warm he felt.

 

He shifted, peering over her shoulder more to get sight of her face, likely to see if she was afraid. She was fighting the desire to melt against him, feeling helpless and loving it. His grip on her throat tightened and she swallowed reflexively, but stayed calm. She could feel that wonderful warmth of subspace creep up from the dark corners of her brain and wrap her in the comfort of being dominated.

 

"You should fear me." He snarled, the cool tubes of his mask brushing her ear and sending shivers down her neck to her nipples that screwed up tighter and ached for his touch. His voice snatched her from that tentative touch of subspace, forcing her brain to decipher his words as if he spoke in a foreign language.

 

"Why?" She sighed towards the ceiling, no longer bothering to breathe through her nose. Her lips had long since parted and let the gusty breaths through. His mask pressed firmer against her ear, parts of it kissing the spot beneath her ear that had always set her aflame. His hot breath ghosted out humidly against her skin.

 

"Because I am a monster." He growled threateningly. She trembled in his grasp. This was what she wanted. This was what she had fantasized about for years. This is what haunted her day and night. But she did not forget how he wanted her to view him. She did not completely lose sight of the challenge he had thrown at her. She swallowed down another moan that rose in her throat. His grip on her wrists tightened into the realm of uncomfortably tight, but nothing she couldn't manage.

 

"You are?" She asked, wishing her question sounded stronger, like her determination. But instead came out breathy and soft like a whisper. The strong fingers of his large hand clamped again on her wrists and didn't let up, as if he knew that he could not choke her without ending their game and deciding to take it out of her wrists instead. Her wrists were in the wrong positions for his grip and the bones grated painfully. She gave a flinch and rolled her wrists in his grip just enough to relieve the pinched nerves and bones.

 

She nearly jumped when she realized where her hands were. Obviously, they hung naturally at the top of her buttocks. But with how he had them pulled together and how close he was to her, she doubted he had thought much on their positioning. Which was right as the fly of his pants.

 

Now that she was focusing less on how the strain in her shoulders and the humid kiss of his mask on her neck made her knees weak, she could feel where his belt buckle brushed against her forearms and how the placket of his fly rubbed against her knuckles. She slowly uncurled her fingers and shifted them slightly to the right, coming in contact with hard muscle. She nearly sighed her disappointment when she soon realized it was not the hard muscle she had hoped to come in contact with, but just his thigh.

 

"I am." Bane said firmly, bringing her focus back to the battle of wills they were locked in. He pulled in a breath before leaning his head away from hers. She turned her head slightly in his loosened grip on her neck and sighted him looking at her with dark eyes. Her chest heaved. "You don't sound so convinced. Shall I prove it to you?" He growled tauntingly.

 

Her breath caught in her throat as his bicep rasped against the lace of her bra and rubbing against her nipple. His grip on her throat tightened again, breath becoming stuttered, but breathing was a mere afterthought if only she could get him to rub against her chest again.

 

"I could end your life." Bane growled, his grip tightening uncomfortably more. She fought to suck in a breath and felt a mild sense of concern. She tried to swallow, the arch in her throat massaging his palm. She parted her lips further, compelled to answer. He loosened, allowing her to speak.

 

"Yes, you could." She answered, taking a deep breath incase he thought to choke her again. And while being throttled previously held no interest to her sexually, she was curious if it was a kink of his. She was willing to work with it until instinct to survive kicked in. Until then, all fun and games until somebody comes - as Cam liked to say.

 

"You doubt my sincerity?" Bane snarled threateningly. Liz swallowed, knowing that was a warning sign if there ever was one. His fingers twitched but didn't tighten on her throat. She kept her body relaxed, not that that was difficult with how her nerves sang.

 

"Never." She breathed. She twisted slightly in his hold, looking into his eyes, noting how blown his pupils were. She relaxed again but not before she angled her hands to the left, sneakily angling for her prize. She moved slowly, hoping to not give her plan away. In the back of her head, she knew this was one of those things that used to get her punished back in the day with her other Dom's. Touching what she hadn't been given permission to touch. Moving when she hadn't been told she could. She hoped that her eyes didn't give her away and hoped to distract him enough to checkmate him in this little game of theirs.

 

"You are in control here." She told him breathily, showing him in her expression just how turned on she was by his domination and capture of her. Ah, fly. Ok, more to the left. She thought as she uncurled her fingers and melting back into him, causing her fingers to press back into him more. She knew, not just from his suddenly stilted breath caught halfway through the act of breathing, but also from the very different hardness she felt beneath her fingertips that she struck gold. She pressed back against that wonderful hardness she felt, as much as she could in her position. "Don't you feel in control?" She whispered at him, eyes to where his lips hid behind metal grating. She wanted to touch her lips to his. She wanted to feel his skin. She wanted him so badly in that moment, that had he not been holding her up by her arms, she would have slithered down his body into a puddle on the floor.

 

His hand that had once been grasping her throat had loosened, slipped, and now rested against her collarbone. It slid further down with each breath she took until the steel shank in the wrist brace brushed against her areola tauntingly. She shivered happily at finally getting more than just mental stimulation and swept her fingers against the hardness that she had found in his pants. He flinched and before she knew what happened, he had retreated again to his desk.

 

Liz stood weaving while she fought for her legs to support her through her numbing lust, arms still slightly behind her back even though they had been released, head tilted and frowning. Confused as to why he ran yet again. Until she realized how close she had brought him to giving in to her.

 

\-----------------

 

Bane stood facing his desk, leaning on it with his fists, fighting for control. It had been her words that had shattered the moment he had not realized he had fallen into. Those words that were so bittersweet. He had felt in control. He had felt in control when she was at his mercy; her pulse fluttering like a caught bird against his palm and her body bent to his whim. She had been helpless and caught. But when she had touched him, it had shattered his bravado. It showed him that he wasn't in control, not truly. He was still prisoner to his lusts. He was prisoner to her spell. But he was no longer so sure he wanted to escape her clutches. Perhaps being in her prison would not be the hell that his logical mind told him it was.

 

No. I cannot falter. I cannot fail. Not again. Not in this. He thought to himself, not realizing he was panicking. Not realizing that a truly willing woman scared him. It was unchartered territory. His previous experiences were nothing like what he encountered now. The women had all been nude and waiting beneath sheets by the time he arrived. There were no lights, his request to spare them the sight of him. They always turned from him when he undressed and slid between the sheets, and thus he took them so. It had taken him overhearing conversations amongst men to know that women could enjoy sex as much as he. But it seemed to make no difference to them, and none seemed to welcome him, no matter what he did.

 

To have a woman reach for him, touch him of her own free will. It was unsettling and nothing in his life had prepared him for such an occasion. And it did not help that his body warred with his mind. He looked over his shoulder at the woman in question, staring back at him with confusion clear on her face. His gut gave a pang of lust. His cock begging him to just grab her and sink so far into her he could drown. He sat again in his chair, hardly noticing the squeal it gave in protest, the blood pounded in his ears so loudly.

 

And that's when he remembered something he once heard Barsad complaining about. About how his wife refused to do one thing for him and one thing only. Bane grasped desperately at what might be his last chance to prove to this slip of a woman that he was a monster.

 

He looked at his captive with renewed determination and gave the order.

 

\--------*

 

Liz stood, confused and cold watching as the man turned and left her standing alone. She blinked, not understanding why he turned away such an obvious green light. Surely he knows how much I want him. She thought. And it was clear that he wants this. I felt it, that's not something you can fake. She watched him stand braced over his desk before he looked back at her over his shoulder, so many emotions swirling in his darkened eyes. She wondered if maybe he wanted this, but not with her.

 

A flash of the exotic face that had covered every magazine and news show for weeks showed in her mind's eye. Miranda Tate. Or Talia whatever, Liz remembered with a nauseous thought. His consort. He doesn't want me. He wants her. That must be it.

 

"Come." Bane ordered clearly. Liz's head snapped up in surprise. She looked at him, not remembering when he had sat, but he suddenly wore an air of triumph and superiority like a fine cloak. The chair was twisted towards her, facing the room and not the desk. He sat in it like a negligent king. His knees spread and relaxed, his back resting against the back of the chair, and his arms draped on the armrests. He was a picture of male relaxation and surety.

 

It took her breath away, seeing him so sure of himself in that moment, his changeable eyes sparking with a relative to mischievousness. One hand twitched to life and pointed at the floor less than a foot from him. Liz moved to action.

 

A niggling suspicion tugged at her thoughts. Man sitting, woman standing? No, there are only two things that could come of this. Blowjob or Cowgirl. Sit on his lap or kneel on the floor. Either way I get to touch him.

 

She walked as smoothly as she could on noodles for legs. She came to a stop where he had indicated and waited for further instruction. She watched his eyes crinkle in the corners, but there was nothing nice about his hidden smile.

 

"Closer." He growled. She sucked in a breath and steeled herself against the maliciousness of his gaze. He thinks he has me. That what he will ask will make me run.

 

She stepped closer, coming to a stop between his thighs, feeling awkward seeing him look up at her and her tower over him. His eyes swept down her body once more; lingering on her nipples, which ached in response, and between her thighs, which dampened.

 

"Kneel." He snarled and seemed to wait for her objection. The nastiness of his voice sent a shiver down her spine that was mostly pleasure. She made eye contact, catching his roving irises and keeping them while she floated to her knees. She knew what he wanted and if that's what he wanted, she would give it. She sat back on her heels, her buttocks balanced on the thin post of her stilettoes.

 

She shifted until she was in a sub's pose, finally having been given permission to kneel in supplication before him. Her knees spread shoulder width apart, her hands rested on her thighs, palms up, and waiting for her master. She found her resolve and fought to keep her determination from her gaze. If he thinks he can chase me off with ordering me to give head, he obviously didn't read every page. She thought, trying not to smile.

 

"Am I a monster yet?" Bane asked, thinking he won. Liz smiled, letting the entirety of her thoughts show on her face.

 

"No." She responded quietly but firmly. She crowed inside at how his question was phrased differently. I am winning. She thought, looking down at her hands, waiting for orders. But none came.

 

She frowned when he said nothing but inhaled sharply. Looking up, she tried to make sense of what little she could see of his expression. He was tense, one hand gripping the wooden rest tightly. His right hand still lay hanging from the elbow, fingers resting on his thigh. The fingers twitched but otherwise did not move. His chest and stomach rose and fell with barely elevated breathing. But it was his eyes that she noticed gave him away. More than he likely knew. He looked confused and unsure. All his bravado drained away.

 

She waited. Waited for his bravado to build again and for him to take control again. But it never came. He only stared at her with indecision. So she mentally shrugged. She knew he was capable of it, she only needed to stoke his fire. Seduce him, her mind whispered. He knew what he was asking of you when he ordered you to kneel, so give it to him.

 

And then a thought came to her that nearly made her want to face-palm. She had been treating him like a Dom. Like one who knew what he was doing and what he wanted. She smiled slightly at her knees at her own blindness. She looked up through her lashes at him to see him still watching her, his pupils still wide.

 

She tilted her head to the side coyly, thinking on where to start her siege first. A teaching from her training Dom came back to her: 'Intelligent men appreciate seduction more than others.'. Her eyes landed on the thing closest to her but furthest from his cock to start with.

 

His right foot rested firmly against the floor, lightly grazing her left thigh. She sucked in a breath, taking in his scent of musky male and bergamot. The edge of his scuffed combat boots was stained a russet color, likely from the 'red dirt' she had seen when Barsad had been bringing her to the compound. His pants, similar to those she saw him wear in Gotham, were tucked into his boots but lacked the protective knee patches that the other pair had sported. She hovered her hand over the toe of his boot, questioning her plan before committing to it.

 

Her middle finger came into contact first, landing on the worn crease that bisected the boot. The once black leather felt slightly oily to the touch and held a respectable shine considering their obvious age. She slid her fingers up, catching them on the first X's of his laces, making their tension give the slightest vibration. She watched in surprise as his foot flexed the leather, making it squeak softly. So sensitive, she thought, having not thought that he could have possibly felt her touch.

 

She continued up his boot, following the lines of eyelets and crossing laces. She lightly tugged, feeling a tiny amount of playfulness at where his laces wrapped around his ankle before tying off in front. His foot flexed again at her actions and she loved how she was making his body respond to her.

 

But it was when she came to the end of his boot that she felt her hand tremble slightly. She sat for a second, frozen as it suddenly came back to her that she was kneeling at the feet of Gotham's Reckoning, the man who had consumed her every waking and sleeping thought for far too long. And she was touching him. Or about to. She knew that there still would be a layer to fabric between her fingers and his skin, it was more than she had ever hoped for.

 

So she took a steeling breath and touched her fingers to his pants, feeling the warmth radiating through the coarse cloth, knowing that this was an opportunity that she would never regret. The texture of the fabric was somewhere between the coarseness of work pants and the lighter, thinner fabric of trousers. They had faded in obvious age and use and might have once been black. Liz’s fingers followed just this side of the inner seam as it showed her a road up his leg.

 

Once she reached his calf, she grew more brazen, allowing a firmer touch with more of her hand. As she swam her hand up and around the thick muscle of his calf, it jumped and flexed beneath her touch. Looking up at him, wondering if somehow his reaction was one of disapproval, she was met with a sight she hoped she never forgot.

 

Bane, in all his inhuman appearing glory, half man-half machine, stared at her as if she held all the secrets to the world. His chest, still covered with his piecemeal flak vest, rose and fell with heavy breaths. His changeable irises so swollen with desire, she no longer knew the color of his eyes. His expression was one of tentative wonder and just a touch of fear. Her chest swelled with pride that she could bring such as man to look at her like that with only a few touches, feeling like she had at least some worth to him at that moment.

 

Now sure that he would not call halt to her actions, she continued. She ran her fingers up the back of his calf, now having to lean more to one side to reach him and using it as an excuse to get closer. Shifting her position, she placed her left hand flat on the ground to the outside of his booted foot, making her whole left side press against his leg. She sighed at the contact, her breast pushed against his shin, and let her eyes close for just a moment.

 

She reveled in the moment, pressing her nose to his knee. She sucked in a breath, finding that his cargo pants carried a light scent of gunpowder along with the citrusy bergamot that clung lightly to his person. The gunpowder reminded her of how dangerous the man she knelt for was. She was kneeling at the feet of a man who was as violent as any wild beast. She felt her lips twitch while she savored the shiver of dark desire slither down her spine.

 

She took in one last breath before focusing once again on her task. She straightened some, not enough to take her away from the steady strength on his lower leg, but just enough that she would not be tempted to collapse against him and forget her goal. Which was so close, with her head against his knee.

 

Swirling her fingertips behind his knee, in that thin skinned and tender area oft forgotten, her eyes trailed up his thigh to the crotch of his pants. Against his left thigh, she could easily make out the bulge that was his package, hard and waiting for her. She eyed it, appreciative of the dimensions that it hinted at, knowing that nothing would keep her from him now. No, she would have him one way or another. Be it her mouth, hands, or dare she hope, something better. She smiled, part of her wanting to throw her silly plan of seducing him to the wind and go straight for what she ached to touch, but knowing he still battled his mind.

 

She didn’t look up at him when she heard him suck in a breath nor when his leg twitched in her grasp from the tantalizing swirling of her fingers. She continued with her plan, deciding to draw it out for the both of them. Running her gathered fingertips up the raised and tense tendon behind his knee, she headed for his thigh, feeling the solid strength of his body beneath the cotton stretched across his skin.

 

She wasn’t going to lie to herself, just touching him this way was getting her hot. Not as hot as when he had captured her but hot enough that even if the coming blowjob would be for him, she wouldn’t be left out in the cold completely. She licked her lips watching the play of hard muscle shift beneath fabric and skin as he moved his leg in response to her fingers inching closer and closer along his inner thigh. She skidded over what looked to be an oily thumbprint, long since forgotten in many inferior washes, loving how he began to shift in his seat, his breath coming faster now.

 

As she reached mid thigh, likely less than six inches from his fly, she swiftly changed directions from her expected destination. She would have sworn she could almost hear his huff of disappointment but chalked it up to her imagination. She pressed the full of her hand, palm and all, across his thigh. She squeezed the impossibly firm muscles, feeling them harden and soften beneath her her hand, nearly stealing her breath away.

 

She looked to her new destination, wondering if he would allow what she had planned for him, and wondering if he would enjoy it before the main show. The fingers of his right hand dangled loosely from his wrist and fingertips barely brushing his thigh. She closed the distance between their fingers, letting just the tips touch the nailbeds of his index and middle fingers. They twitched but he did not call an end and his hand did not more away from her touch.

 

She waited for a moment, all the little hairs along her body raised in gooseflesh. She curved her fingers up and slid them along his strong knuckles until the edge of his wrist brace stopped her. His skin, warmer than she expected, had only the occasional dark blond hair on the knuckles. As she curved her thumb around his hand, feeling so small and breakable compared to the sturdy construction of his body, noted how much thicker his skin felt than hers. The construction difference between men and her had always fascinated her, but now more so as this man’s construction surpassed any other she had ever touched.

 

She turned his hand over with little resistance from him, most of his fingers flexing flat before returning to their relaxed curl. She shifted her weight and brought her left hand to join her in her study of his manly paw. His fingernails had been short and flat, common amongst men, though his thumb nail was blackened and the cuticle scraped as if he had slammed it recently. Calluses littered his fingers and palm, nearly covering the hand completely, showing that even in his rank, he was still not a man to sit idle. Dirt collected around the cuticle of his ring finger and his skin seemed dehydrated and neglected.

 

Cupping his hand, palm up, in her own, she massaged the tight muscles in his hand. She worked through the obviously sore muscles between the thick bones and from around the knobby joints. She heard his sigh, as if her touch soothed him and his wrist fell, as relaxed in her grasp as it could be, still wrapped in it’s brown leather brace. Feeling a surge of not quite maternal caring, but something she had never felt for another but him, settling into her.

 

Turning his hand over again, his arm giving to her like malleable clay, she massaged more, feeling his skin move and give along with answering pops of his joints returning to their proper places. She worked as far back as the brace allowed her but could not help but wish to soothe what she could not. Red and purple bruising shadowed the tops of his fist, fresh and from hitting something solid. Little dots of burst blood vessels made her suck her bottom lip into her mouth to keep from wanting to weep over the evidence of injury on him.

 

A need washed over her. It was undeniable and unstoppable, feeling as natural as breathing in that moment. She cradled his far from delicate hand his hers, as if it was a sacred offering and lowered to lips to each damaged knuckle, kissing it lightly with moist lips.

 

Bane’s sudden gasp of breath made his mask make a startling whistling sound, shaking her from her mild trance. Knuckles hovering a hair’s breadth from her open lips, she looked at him. He appeared just as lost in the moment as she, but looking at him and seeing signs of arousal on his body, apart from the obvious, reminded her of why she was at his feet. And it was not to worship his hand.

 

She felt her lips curl in the corners as she stared back at him from between his knees. Color had risen up his neck and the hardness in his eyes had given way to an intense softness that begged her silently to continue. Her smile made him feel something since she watched his eyes widen before returning to a heavy lidded stare.

 

Keeping her eyes locked with his and feeling a wicked naughtiness that she knew he could see, she shifted her grasp on his hand and fingers. She pressed her mouth to his knuckles again, leaving her lips parted minutely so that he could feel the humid hotness of her mouth. She licked her lips, watching his adam’s apple crest beneath the thin skin of his throat. Pulling his fingers up so that they were level with her mouth, she first kissed his nail bed, causing him to take a shaky breath. But he didn’t stop her. She didn’t know if she could, had he wanted her to. She puckered her lips slightly and pressed them to the pad of his fingertip, watching him fight the urge to shift in his chair. Kissing his fingertip again, feeling the ridges of his fingerprint rasp against the soft skin of her bottom lip, she panted out a breath before parting her lips and giving him a playful lick. That set off a series of chain reactions that left her reeling.

 

Before she knew what happened, he had nearly shoved her flat against the floor and had nearly ran from her again. She sat back on her heels, blinking dumbly at the chair in front of her that had, until seconds before, housed Bane. But was now horribly empty. Her heart pounded in her chest from a sudden and unexpected influx of adrenaline from him moving so quickly. She looked over her shoulder, trying to hold back a welling in her eyes.

 

Bane stood, leaned against the edge of his bed, chest heaving and hand to his head. His eyes were a storm of emotions, the first of which appeared to be uncertainty. His eyes darted about, looking anywhere but at her, as if searching for an escape route.

 

Liz didn’t understand and she fought back the surge of emotion that had switched from lust to self hatred and sadness. She felt empty, not the kind of empty that she had felt moments ago before he had ruined everything, but a kind of empty that left her feeling alone and cold. She gritted her teeth and pushed back her welling tears, finding the growing feeling of anger and pulling it to the front.

 

“What did I do?” She asked, surprised at how strong and sure her voice sounded in the near silence of the room. She watched Bane flinch at the suddenness of her voice and his eyes snapped to her, where she sat on the floor, just as he had left her. His once indeterminable eyes were now a sea of emotions that rose and fell like a violent ocean. It took her breath away. This was not the tightly controlled rage she had seen earlier, this was sight into his very mind at this moment in time. He had dropped his walls and barriers and was now emotionally naked to her.

 

“You have weakened me. Ruined me.” Bane rasped out in a harsh whisper. Liz felt the lance of his accusation, but looked again in his eyes and not at how his hands shook. And she felt her stomach bottom out. He is afraid. He looked like a drowning man that was grasping a slipping rope. His eyes were wild like a trapped animal and his body twitched with each thought that came over his mind.

 

Liz looked at her knees with her head bowed. She had not realized what a challenge she had taken on when she had accepted his battle of wills. She had not realized that beneath her obsession’s muscled and strong exterior lay a scared and uncertain animal, who ran rather than fight. She thought about leaving, just getting up, grabbing her clothes and leaving him in his mess. He obviously had issues with what they were doing and it was not her job to be his therapist.

 

She stood, slowly unfolding herself from her position on the ground. Her knees creaked with her movements, having become stiff. She wobbled on her legs and her heels before regaining her balance and kept her eyes to the floor as she searched for her shirt and skirt. She walked over to where they lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. On the floor where she had dropped them while stripping for him. Where she had stood scared but as proudly as her self-esteem would allow her.

 

No. A voice deep in her brain said while she looked at her clothes. No, I will not give in. She said, repeating it to herself, her resolve growing by the moment. No, I will not leave him here. She turned and looked at him over her shoulder, catching him looking at her with a mixture of fear and hope. No. She turned fully and stood tall. She took a step closer to him, watching him watch her with uncertainty.

 

“Do you think me weak for wanting you?” She asked, feeling her spine stiffen like steel beneath a resurgence of determination. She would not let him chase her out now. No, she had worked for her prize and she would have it, come hell or high water.

 

Her prize was him and nothing he did was going to turn her back.

 

\------------------

 

Bane stood on legs that felt both weak and strong, staring at the woman in front of him. Inside, he warred with himself. He was so tired, so very tired of fighting to keep his lust at bay. But he was afraid. Afraid of so much. Afraid of how this could change everything he had known all his life. Afraid that he had no more control over his body or emotions, both of which screamed at him to take her. And he was just so tired from the battle of fighting it.

 

She waited for his answer, looking sure of herself and what she wanted. But what did she want? His body? His mind? His soul? He would give it all to just make the aching and wanting leave him. But could he really trust himself to give over to her? And what did this all mean? What did her standing and asking him those questions mean?

 

“No,” he barely formed, answering her question. Her body language relaxed and she stalked closer, her body rolling and flexing like a cat.

 

“Submitting to desires is not weakness.” She said softening her voice until it coaxed him to give in to her. He knew now that his game of wills had backfired so far on him that he was now the one at her mercy, completely lost as to what he should do. She eyed him as if gauging him for the level of threat he was to her. He looked away but stood straight and gripped his vest at the neck. If this was now her game, he would play best he knew.

 

She walked closer, hips swinging, footfalls falling one in front of the other. Her body swayed and jiggled with each landing foot, hypnotizing him. She came to a stop, leaving but inches from him, all traces of fear from her. She stood and stared at him with a cocked head. She was determined, but calm and not aggressive in any way. His pulse elevated with her proximity, reminding him of all the sensations she could create in him and the idea that perhaps that was but the tip of the iceberg in what she could show him.

 

In a startling deja vu, she stood straight and reached her hand to his mask again, the delicate thing hanging in the air between them. She waited for him to snap at her or tell her no, but he was far too raw and exposed to deny her. He relinquished himself to her mercy. He would fight no longer.

 

She touched his mask like she would have touched his mouth. He wondered what such a thing felt like, hardly remembering the last time he felt something than his own fingers touch his scarred lips.

 

“Does it come off?” She whispered, taking a step closer to see better. Her body heat radiated like a sun and he let his eyes drag up and down her nearly bare body before answering.

 

“It can.” He breathed the words at her, no longer having the energy to answer properly. She had long since sucked the fight from him. He could just barely feel the pressure of her fingers as they touched the tubes and brushed the grating over his lips. His want was returning again to the forefront of his mind, reminding him of how much he ached to have her.

 

“Will you?” She asked tipping her head again in curiosity. He blinked back at how he imagined she would react to the sight of his face. No, he could not survive seeing her horror.

 

“No.” He breathed out against the same fingers that had worked him into a frenzy of lust. His eyes blinked languidly, remembering how he had felt beneath her touch and how he loved that she did not hesitate to touch him. He did not disgust her, that was what had frightened him from his chair. She was not disgusted by him and would do anything to him, he need only ask. He knew that the offer still stood, that all he would need to do was suggest and it was his. It was a heady and foreign power he felt, even as he gave into her whims.

 

“Why?” She asked innocently despite having already heard his reasoning earlier in the evening. He locked his eyes to hers, feeling calm overtake him again and the surging emotions calm, leaving just burning heat and aching behind.

 

“It would ruin you.” He said softly to her big brown eyes. She was so untouched by horrors of the world, he knew this instinctively, that he flatly refused to ruin what was pristine. He watched her cherry red lips flick up in the corners and a flirty smile graced her lips. Her warm eyes held a sober resignation that surprised him.

 

“You already have.” She countered, not realising the way all the building need in him washed over him suddenly, making it nearly impossible to resist. But some primal male part of his brain told him to wait, just a little longer. Then all of her would be his. “Have you been kissed?”

 

\-----------

To Be Continued...


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Things get more heated. Enjoy. :)

“Not in many years.” He grumbled back at her, his eyes locked on her lips. His arms had dropped down from their roost at his vest collar during their conversation. He had calmed greatly and now showed renewed interest in her again. She would coax the Dom out of him if it killed her, preferably after he fucked her stupid. Though it did sadden her to think of going years without kissing someone.

 

“On the lips?” She asked, curiously and wondering if he had ever been kissed before the mask was put on. His silence gave her an answer, but to what she didn’t know, so she moved on. “You are missing out.” She commented lightly, staring at the shadows that played behind the grating of his mask, darkening and lightening with each word he spoke. She nearly salivated at the thought of kissing him. Her lips ached and her womanhood dampened at the thought of their lips meshing together and fighting for dominance. Bane’s amused chuff snapped her out of her miniature daydream and back to present possibilities.

 

“Am I?” He asked in skeptical amusement. Liz stared at how his eyes brightened and crinkled when he was amused and how it changed his whole demeanor. This was something that all her videos and pictures of him had never shown. Bane’s amusement. And it was a glorious thing. It made her want to grin stupidly at him and melt at his feet. She nodded wobbly and felt a chill sweep her body as he let out a smooth single chuckle.

 

“I have no use for such frivolities.” He answered.

 

“Are you sure?” She asked.

 

“Monsters deserve no kisses.” He countered darkly. She sighed at how they had returned to that subject again. She let her eyes flow from one feature of his iconic face to another deciding to give in to her desire to touch him now that he seemed to have no objections.

 

“Mmm, perhaps.” She mumbled, reaching up and grazing his bisected eyebrow with her finger, watching his face melt in enjoyment. She had always wondered what had happened to leave his eyebrow permanently divided by a silvery scar. Feeling the bristly hairs beneath her fingers, she continued. “But monsters are created.” Decided she had enough games, she dropped her hand to his shoulder, feeling where the shoulder strap to his vest met hard muscle. She pushed back and down on his shoulder, looking him in the eye, gently. He hesitated, not out of misunderstanding, but as if taking the moment to decide if he wanted to give to her direction. He leaned back and perched slightly on the edge of his mattress, staring back at her with indulgent curiosity.

 

“What were you before you were created?” She asked, a sensuality coming over her as she manipulated him until she stood between his spread legs, their heights off by only an inch now. Bane didn’t answer and just stared at her. She smirked, knowing she would never get an answer out of him. It had been a rhetorical question anyways. She took a steeling breath, before diving in.

 

She took the edges of his jacket in her hands and slowly pulled them up and back until impeded by his arms. He stared at her with a rising fire in his eyes that took her breath away. If he looked at her in such a way much longer, she didn’t know if she would be able to continue. He gave in and joined her in her attempt to undress him, his hands brushing hers as he took the jacket off. The shifting in his body to get the sleeves off rubbed the two of them together, making them both suck in a breath. He dropped it heavily on the ground beside them, never looking away from her.

 

“You were a man when you put that mask on.” She told him, hoping that maybe, if she beat it into his head enough, he would leave his doubts behind. Her mind swirled with thoughts on how to get him to give in, she did not notice that his hands came up to rest on her hips, his thumbs brushing her ridged hipbones. “You are a man still.”

 

She reached for the odd metal clasps on the side of his flak vest, fighting with them before finding the release and pulling the heavy item over his head. His eyes crinkled in the corners again and watched with a dark heat in his eyes. She exhaled as she dropped the vest on the floor with a clatter of metal buckles.

 

Her relaxed statue came to life, pulling her by the hips into him. She gasped and then melted against him as she felt his chest vibrate in a silent growl against her breasts. He grumbled something but she didn’t hear it, all she could think about was how hot and hard he felt against her, both his torso and what she was sure had to be an uncomfortable erection in his pants.

 

He released her and stared intensely at her, seeming to wait for her to continue. Her hands now shaking and her legs braced by his, she sought the edge of his green long sleeve shirt. Taking it off of him took both of their combined efforts to achieve, but was well worth the reward.

 

Liz had never seen something so horribly beautiful in her life. The sheer threatening muscle that formed plateaus and valleys across his chest was disturbed only by the occasion pink scar, likely from the very shrapnel that had nearly taken his life. If not for her. His chest had no visible hair, which she thought interesting for such an no-nonsense man. She would not have thought ‘man-scaping’ was something he would have filled his day with. Being unable to help herself, she touched, just over his heart, feeling the hard plane of his pec shift with each breath. Beneath her fingers, she felt the stubble of chest hair and smiled slightly before exploring all of the skin she could come in contact with.

 

The squeezing grip on her hips reminded her of where she was and what her true goal was. And that was a naked Bane. She looked at him, gauging his mood and found it impossibly more intense than it was, his shoulders nearly twitching. He seemed to be holding something back. An emotion, a word, a touch, she did not know. She just knew that he was and it was stifling in the best possible way. It made her heart beat faster and her body tremble in want.

 

She attacked the buckles on the back brace that supported and hid his midsection. Part of it was tucked into his pants but that didn’t stop her. The overload of anticipation snuck up on her and took over all thoughts until she was yanking at the thing and nearly snarling. When she finally removed the leather and steel beast from around his belly, she panted with a mixture of desire and victory. She threw it to the floor as far from her as she could manage with shaking hands and arms. She felt possessed and hungry and so out of breath.

 

She didn’t hesitate to reach for his belt, tearing the leather from its keeper, viciously jerking the double tongues from the black leather. He grunted deeply at her battle with his wardrobe, sounding just as aroused by it as she was. She didn’t bother pulling the belt from his pants, it would have taken too much time, time that seemed to have slowed down to a snail's pace while her blood raced for more pleasure. She grabbed at the placket of his pants, snaked a slim hand between his heaving belly and his waistband, managing to get the top button undone before all hell broke loose again.

 

\--------

 

Bane couldn’t take it. Not anymore. It was torture. A torture of which he had never experienced but loved every moment of it despite himself. Having a woman undress him was a delightful evil.

 

He grabbed her soft hips tightly, barely remembering not to hold too tightly or he might crush her. He growled low in his throat, giving voice to his frustration at her not seeming to give heed to the plea he whispered in her ear. The plea for her to hurry. The plea for her to stop playing with him. Well, this is what she got. He had little control left. Feeling her nails brush against his pubic hair had been the last of it.

 

He propelled her backwards, almost holding her up by her hips alone when she nearly tripped. He ripped his wrist brace off, the rigidity of it annoying him. His sight locked onto the nearest flat surface; the wall near the door. His vast intellect did quick calculations to make sure it was viable before pushing her against it. He looked down at her when she gasped loudly, but saw not a sliver of fear or pain in her wide brown eyes.

 

His chest pounded, his heart feeling like it was in his every cell, thudding with the beat of his need for her, like the loudest drum. His breath heaved and sounded like an enraged bull in his own ears, but he was long past caring. Lizbeth blinked up at him as he towered over her, her lace covered breasts pressed and rubbing against his bare chest. Her pulse thudded in her neck like a primal offering of surrender while her nails gripped his biceps tightly.

 

Mine. She is mine.

\-----------

 

She gasped with breath, half fearful, half so delirious with lust she didn’t care if she died. She stood, her back pressed against a cold wall, facing down the largest and most aroused man she had ever encountered. She had a moment of wondering if she would survive him, a man so strong and so obviously not in control. But then she realized, she really didn’t care. Even as she gripped his arms, what she deemed the eighth wonder of the world, he shoved both hands between them. She expected him to reach for his fly and unzip, but no.

 

His thick fingers threaded between her skin and her panties, his calluses rasping against her skin delightfully. He gave a tender sweep of his fingers against the skin of her belly, nearly brushing her thatch of hair. She moaned in approval and need for him to touch more, lower, anywhere to cool the fire burning in her veins. He snarled loudly before yanking at her panties, forcing them down her legs, shocking her into fumbling action. She could feel the seams pulling at her skin and threads popping as he roughing yanked them off her; her barely managing to step out of one side before he had her hoisted up against the wall.

 

Her gasps came continuously now. Surprise, lack of oxygen, no room between her and a solid wall of hot flesh, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t have caught her breath if she had a net the size of texas. She stared up at him, still not quite eye level, even though her thighs wrapped around his hips for support. Wondering where the line between violence and sex was and why it’s name was Bane.

 

Another of his nearly angry sounding growls took the last of her mind away, leaving her a limp doll to his whim. She trembled with the ache and need, nearly wanting to weep if he didn’t touch her soon.

 

Instead of touching the burning core of her body and the throbbing of her clit, he instead fought with his fly, pulling it down with the raspy whisper of a zipper. He then pinned her with his chest and torso, nearly pressing the breath from her while he shoved his pants and underwear down only far enough to pull himself free with an animalistic snarl.

 

She cried out, not from any stimulation, but just from feeling the thick length of him spring from it’s cruel imprisonment and rest against her outer labia. Bane let out an answer sound, something that might only be described as a nasal gasp. Liz could hold still no longer, her hands roaming his muscle rounded shoulders, feeling the thick muscles shift and bunch under her fingers while he manipulated the two of them.

 

She could feel the thick scar tissue at the base of his neck and the carbon fiber casing that held the necessary medicine at the back of his mask. She followed the scar tissue, feeling the rough scarred striations out from there that spoke of his battle for life and mobility.

 

“Ahhhh!” She cried loudly as a calloused finger brushed against her swollen clit, making pleasure shoot through her body like electricity. She panted for the feeling of it, her head rested back against the wall. His body froze at her sound and she knew he stared at her but she was past caring. “Again.” She pleaded, eyes closed and face slack to the ceiling. He only grumbled in response before probing past what she needed him to touch. She whimpered, her chest falling with her disappointment, only to sucking a breath again as he felt around her core, slipping through all the wet desire he had caused.

 

He gave a snarling roar, reared back, nearly threw her up in the air, catching her higher against the wall. He roughly yanked her right thigh up over his bicep, folding and curling her body towards him, leaving her spread and immobile. She wrapped her left thigh around his waist and anchored herself against him, hoping in that one second that she was relaxed enough that his entry would go smoothly.

 

He gave no other warning, only a shifting of his unoccupied arm between them and a blunt pressure, before he thrust forward with a howling groan. Liz hissed against the sudden intrusion through muscles that had not been stretched for some time, but it was a hiss of pleasure and pain mixing into a brain numbing intoxication. She missed how his hand grasped one ass cheek like it was his only anchor to this world.

 

She had opened her eyes in time to see his flutter shut, an expression of slack relief around his eyes. She took her possibly last seconds of reprieve to relax as much as she could internally and revel in the wonderful fullness that he provided that would be sure to send her to a fiery release.

 

And hardly a second she received, before his eyes opened and a burning intensity in his eyes make her quake in his arms.

 

\------

 

Oh fuck.

 

God, this is good. He thought, finally feeling an easing in the horrendous ache that had settled in his groin so long ago. She was so wet and hot and tight, gripping him better than any woman had. She felt like fire and honey and looked so beautiful pinned in his arms, under his control.

 

He locked gaze with her, mesmerized by the sensual picture she made, long stocking covered leg draped over his arm, one shoe missing while her heel dug into his shoulder blade. Her full lips parted and panting, face flushed with pink. The other foot still held both heel and desecrated panties hanging from her ankle that was clamped around his waist. His hands now freer than they had been when her legs had been draped across his thighs, he did what he had been wanting to do since he saw her ass. He slid his hand along her stocking thigh, loving how they rasped with movement and the lace top gave way to the softest skin he had ever felt. He took one ass cheek in the palm of his hand, gripping tightly until his fingers dented her skin.

 

Pulling back from the grasping hot depths of her body, he panted at how her legs tightened in benediction for his return. Which he gave happily and with gusto, sliding through her slippery glove until he could sink no further and her body bounced deliciously.

 

Sweet witch.

 

\--------

 

She couldn’t have helped the sounds that came from her, even if she had needed to. Each penetrating punch of his hard and thick cock, checked her body, making her bounce and let out little noises of gasping approval and delighted surprise.

 

She threw her head back against the wall, not caring that it ‘thunked’ and might be sore later. His cock pounded in and out of her with a desperation she didn't know possible. But she loved it. He made her body sing and ache, and feel much too small. She twisted and flexed at each re-entry, hoping, wishing he would hit that magical spot that would set her off with little delay.

 

Sweat beaded on her and slithered down her overheated body. Even as his rapid fire, near violent pounding thrusts continued, he never missed a beat. Growling and snarling like an animal, watching her face hungrily. The skin on his chest, cheeks, throat and shoulders grew ruddy with his efforts, his breath sound like bellows, punctuated by a faint whistling from his mask with each exhale.

 

His eyes ravenously watched her bouncing breasts with every punishing thrust, until he whined low in his throat and buried his head against her neck. She knew what he was feeling. That wonderful building that also signaled the fast approaching end. He shifted his grip on her ass cheek, grasping hard enough that it hurt, sending her nerves flaming towards orgasm.

 

She cried and babbled incoherently, tears nearly in her eyes as his thrusts shortened, each punctuated by the slightest swirl of his hips, making her clit bump and rub against him. She could feel it. So close. Closer with each stretching, filling, exquisite thrust he gave her, banging her against the wall and wrenching louder and louder cries from her throat. The building ache and fire, burning through her veins.

 

She clutched at him with everything she had. Every muscle in her trembling body went towards keeping him pistoning into her and ratcheting up that pleasure higher and higher. Never enough air, never enough friction, never enough Bane, never enough thick cock. She dug her nails deep into his skin, marking his shoulders and thrashing her head against his, nearly yelling in his ear for more.

 

The pain of her claws imbedded in his hide seemed to enrage him. He roared at her neck. Pulling his torso back and yanking her bra down until it bared both bouncing tits to his onslaught. Despite having no lips or mouth in which to suck with the apparatus attached to his face, he rubbed and pushed his mask against her nipples, making her thrash further in his arms. She knew he was following close on her heels when he let out a yell that sounded more human than animal and almost formed a word.

 

With his panting hot breath ghosting over her breast while he almost nuzzled it in lust, her nipple caught wonderfully on each and every ridge on his mask. As his growls turned to moans and his snarls melted into aching cries, his hips which had set a gruelling pace to begin with snapped harder and faster. His arms started to hold her more and pin her less.

 

With his face still buried between her breasts, he shoved his hand between them. He smashed his thumb against her swollen and overstimulated clit, giving it a single rolling rub. It was enough to send her screaming into her orgasm and him hollering into his own.

 

\------------

 

Bane’s knees gave beneath him, betraying them. Using the wall to slow the descent, he had no choice but to let them slide slowly until he was kneeling. His pants and underwear trapped against his sweaty skin, his boots pinching in protest. But he was well past caring, at least for the moment. Lizbeth was limp in his arms, slick with sweat and panting. He rested his forehead against her shoulder, the weight of it too much. Her hands released their sharp digging into his back and lazily danced against his overstimulated nerves. He breathed out against her shoulder, wishing he could smell her skin and taste the sweat at her throat. There were things he was never allowed in his life after his injuries. The mask gave him a very diminished sense of smell and denied him taste.

 

Venom flooded his system, suddenly making his stomach heave. His panting breath halted and he gave a short grunt at the bile that threatened to come up. He pulled back from her and held his breath, hoping that denying himself some of his needed medicine, that his body would not threaten overdose. Being an aerated thing, controlled by his inhale, it was easy to make his body sick with oversaturation if he was not careful. Holding his breath at certain times helped control the levels, but in his fervor for that hot place between her thighs, he forgot all that training.

 

Fingers trailed along the patches of uncovered skin of his skull, tender and soothing. He opened his eyes and found Lizbeth’s warm brown eyes looking back at him. All encompassing concern had stolen the lazy glow from her expression. Her dark brows furrowed and she put more of her hand against his skin. She looked at him as though she would do anything in her power to take his pain and sickness away if she could. Take the very life from her lungs and give it to him. The sight would have taken his breath away if he wasn’t already holding it. His stomach rolled again making his breath hitch, a distracting haze edging his vision in red and grey. He tried blinking it away despite knowing that it would do nothing. Only one thing would keep him from the retching that would soon follow.

 

It would ruin you.

 

You already have.

 

He remembered her words, the ones that still shocked him to his core. He needed to remove his mask, but refused to see her horror at what lay beneath. Even Barsad cringed in his own way when he had once spied him without his mask; a man he respected for never showing his emotions. Talia had been able to look upon his face, but even then it was colored with pity and a warmth that he was unsure of its reality.

 

He finally allowed an intake of air, feeling the next side effect seep into his brain, making it throb expansively bigger with each beat of his heart until it banged against his skull like a ram. He swallowed down a whimper, not giving in to the weakness.

 

“Tell me.” Lizbeth whispered to him. He opened his eyes to stare into hers. She was still wrapped around him, his cock still embedded in her hot depths and her legs limply draped around him. He stared at her through the pounding in his head, the nausea that rose in him, and the darkening of his vision.

 

It would ruin you.

 

You already have.

 

Have you been kissed? You are missing out.

 

A desire rose slowly in him, cresting slowly like a hill rising during an earthquake. He did not yet want to be parted from her. He wanted to take all that she could give. He suspected that she had more to give. Now that he could think more clearly after the maddening lust had faded into manageable levels, he realized she was uncharted territory. Her pleasure was honest and willing. She was no reluctant bed partner that wanted to be gone the moment he was finished. There only to slake his need before scurrying off. If he told her to get out, she would baulk and beg to stay. He knew that looking into her eyes that pleaded with him to speak.

 

His stomach rolled again, threatening to eject all that he had eaten during the day. He knew what needed to be done.

 

“I am at your mercy.” She whispered in reminder to him that all he needed to do was ask. He looked into her trusting brown eyes, trying to fight the uncertainty that crawled up his spine. She trusted him, but for this, he needed to trust her. He opened his mouth but was stopped by the dryness and a feeling that was so unknown to him that he had no name for it. The closest that came to it was perhaps vulnerability. Something he had no experience with. Not since he was a boy. Not since The Pit. He did not feel like himself when the words left his lips.

 

“Close your eyes.” Bane uttered, a surreal feeling settling over him. He watched her slowly shut her curious eyes. Her hands stayed where they were, one drawing patterns along his ribs, another dancing along the edges of his mask. He took his hands from her body, making her shift and settle more solidly against his lap in their kneeling position. It caused her hips to move. He gasped at the over-sensitive nerve endings and her eyelids fluttered. No, I can't trust her. He thought as fear lanced through him.

 

Then he remembered something from one of her written fantasies. To be blindfolded and tortured with pleasure until her body sang with it. His traitorous cock gave a twitch of life at the thought. A small pile of cream cloth from the corner of his diminished vision caught his attention. His scarf. His lips twitched.

 

You are missing out.

 

He snatched it from beside them and wrapped it around her head. She gasped in surprise, brought a hand to the cloth over her eyes, and finished with a hint of a smile. She leaned forward to allow him to tied it behind her head, her hot breath tickling his skin. He tied it tight enough and pulled at it until he was sure she couldn’t see.

 

“Don’t look.” He growled in dark warning, faking the danger in his voice. He felt more naked and exposed but needed her fear of him to make sure she obeyed. He trusted no one. She bobbed her head obediently.

 

He brought shaking hands up to the latches at the back of his head. He flicked them open deftly, watching her the entire time. She kept her hands on his shoulders, suddenly still as stone. She held her breath as realization came over her at what he was doing.

 

He held his breath with her and pulled the straps of his mask forward over his head.

 

\-------------

 

Liz was afraid to move. Her hearing amplified tenfold once he had tied the blindfold over her eyes. She could make out a vague glow from the lights in the room around the edges but nothing more, so she closed her eyes unnecessarily. She would not disobey him.

 

When she heard the metallic clicking of latches, she froze suddenly understanding why he blindfolded her. She held her breath, not daring to breathe while he removed his sacred mask. A rasp of fabric against skin and a creaking of plastic met her ears. His arms shifted under her hands as he moved, muscles rolling like stones beneath his skin.

 

A whistling exhale broke the silence, followed by a odd sound that vaguely resembled a nasal snort. She wondered at the construction of his mask and why he made such a sound at its removal. His hand lowered until she could feel the mask rest against the floor, the tubes to the front tickling the skin of her thigh. She could now hear a faint mechanical hiss as it stopped aerating his much needed medicine.

 

“Breathe.” He said softly, his voice smooth and gentle. He sounded so different without the interference of the contraption. She could hear that the odd lilting of his words were more due to accent than speech pattern. The robotic tone was replaced by a human deepness and gone was the nasal quality. She inhaled, having not realized she held her breath and could feel him do the same, their stomachs touching. Her lips parted, the excitement of him removing his mask causing her nerves to spark back up. 

 

He shifted and his palm cupped her face. His thumb shifted up from her jaw to her mouth, sweeping across the fullness of her bottom lip. He pressed and grazed the sensitive skin. Her skin lit up with the sensation. She panted out a breath, feeling her body respond with a hunger for more.

 

“Would you indulge me further?” He asked softly, giving her permission to deny him. Not that she ever could after what he had already given her. She could never deny him anything. Anything he wanted was his, no matter what it was. Her obsession with him arched and filled her chest with aching. She could now almost feel more than hear his words, the vibrations of his chest crossing the short span of distance between them. “Speak the words and I will leave you.” His thumb still painting her lip with his presence. No, please don’t leave me. Never leave me. I need you. The overwhelming emotions rose, nearly bring tears to her eyes.

 

“Please,” She whimpered, nearly unable to speak past the arousal that boiled up again through her electric nerves. He froze in his movements, his thumb coming to rest on her chin and his body stilling beneath her. “More.” She breathed out, shaking. She heard his sharp gasp of what she could only guess was disbelief. Then his tension melted from him, she could feel it in how his shoulders relaxed beneath her hands.

 

Embolden and curious, her hands twitched to life. She moved them slowly, closer and closer to his neck. She moved at a snail's pace, waiting for him to stop her. She could feel him staring at her through the blindfold. His pulse thudded powerfully in his throat and he swallowed reflexively against her palms. When her fingertip snaked behind his naked jawbone and brushed against the now naked lobe of his ear, he groaned and leaned forward until his forehead rested against hers. His unhindered breath ghosted against her parted lips, only inches away from her own, and his cock twitched again inside of her. The combination sent shivers down her spine.

 

He wants this still. He wants me still.

 

A more pained groan left his lips before he gripped her hips tightly. That was her only warning before he lifted them both up. She clung to him with arms and hands, biting her lips at how sensitive she still was where they were joined. He tried to turn them around but she could feel how he wobbled and remembered that he was effectively hobbled by the clothing they didn’t wait long enough to remove. He wrapped an arm under her ass to support her weight better in his arms before gently pulling out of her.

 

“Do you trust me?” Bane whispered, bare lips almost within touching distance. His tone was disarming in its hint of amusement and completely caught her off guard. She opened her mouth to answer him with as best an answer she could give but words did not leave. 

 

\---------------

 

Bane grinned in a way that he had not in some time. If ever. Watching the blindfolded face of Lizbeth fly through the air under his own propulsion, would bring a smile to his face for many years to come. Her alarmed squeak while she was airborne was endearing, but so was the smile she wore on her face despite it. He watched, his arousal edging higher again as he watched her land and bounce onto his soft but firm bed. Still half undressed, breasts half bare and bouncing, thighs spread and satiny in their stockings, panties hanging from one stiletto shod foot, hair mussed beyond all reason, creamy skin still flushed, lips grinning and red. 

 

How could I have ever thought her plain? He questioned, feeling his body responding anew to the stimulus she provided. Her shocked giggle echoed through the room, taking his own grin from him. He went still and memorized the sound, something he had not heard in his presence in decades. Since Talia was a babe too young to yet understand the hardships of the world. Lizbeth’s laughter faded slowly, sensing something had changed, that the playful nature they had was gone. He watched her turn her head and try to track where he was by sound. 

 

“Bane?” She asked tentatively, a different kind of concern pulling the edges of her mouth down and making a sadness creep into his chest at the loss of her smile. A concern stemming from fear. 

 

“Shhh,” Making the sound easier than with his mask on. He said it softly, hoping to soothe her. Which it did, somewhat. She lay propped up on her elbows where she landed and shifted her legs so that they lay more comfortably and modestly. “A moment.” He stated, telling her the best he could in that moment that he would join her, just not yet. 

 

First, he bent and untied his combat boots. The knots fought his still shaking fingers but he won the battle, allowing him to loosen the laces and pull the boots from his feet. Kicking his fatigue pants from his legs, they dropped to the floor and made the belt rattle. Bane smirked at how Lizbeth jumped at the sound and her breathing became shallower. She bit her lips and he felt a responding stab of lust in his belly. No, he was definitely not finished with her yet.

\----------------

To Be Continued...


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry that took so long to get posted. I had it written out, but needed my beta to read through it. And then got sidetracked with real life. Also I was a little sad to bring it to an end.

Snatching up his mask from the floor, he shuffled over to one of his three desks. The one that housed his medical supplies. Setting the mask on the cluttered surface, he pulled open a drawer and took a vial of the medicine that he needed to get him through being maskless. The pinch of the needle at the inside of his arm was inconsequential, especially once he considered the possibilities that lay at his feet. 

 

Between The Pit and The League, as well at the non-negotiable need for Venom, Bane had long learned to live a life of little luxury. He limited his wants to food, shelter, and water. Anything else was unneeded in the grand scheme of life. Talia had encouraged him to accept some decadence in his life, arguing that he no longer needed to live as he had in the Pit. Later, Barsad had agreed with her sentiments that the Demon Head should not live like his soldiers. He should live slightly above, hence the expensive carpets and luxury bedding. 

 

But this was his first true opportunity with freedom to indulge in his every desire. He was not currently hindered or handicapped by his mask covering his face and with the morphine mixture racing along his bloodstream, he wouldn’t need it for about an hour. Maybe longer. Bane looked at Lizbeth and felt want grip him. He had never wanted unimportant things before, but he wanted them now. She had planted the seed in his mind about kisses which grew and flourished in Bane’s starving and feral mind until he wanted more than a kiss. He wanted to devour her, to taste her mouth and skin, or perhaps to even leave his mark on her skin. Like a warning or sign to others that he had her and she had submitted to it willingly. He wanted more than a cursory rut to relieve the need in his body. He wanted more than what those scared women had offered him before. 

 

He walked closer, clad only in his underwear. He looked down at where she lay on his bed, waiting for him. Her breath came faster as she realized he was closer, sensing him like the blind sense the sun. He wanted what he could have. Wanted what was offered to him. Like a pagan offering on a dais, taunting him with wild seduction. 

 

He breathed in, feeling himself teeter on the edge of yet another precipice. On this edge of treating his body and mind like a machine and the abyss of human feeling that tempted him into the maw. He recognizes the feeling now that makes him hesitate; fear. But seeing only good to come of giving in, he lets himself fall into the unknown. Within the next breath, he opens his eyes again, feeling more human that machine for the first time in a long time. He lets his desires flood him, giving attention to every whim that flits unhindered through his mind. 

 

He has no goal, no plan, only what he wants. The lecherous fiend in the back of his mind whispers to him. Bare her to you. He falters, having never undressed a woman, and even as mostly nude as she was, he hesitated. Until something niggs in the back of his head, that same fiend. It’s dark little whisper telling him that she desires what he does, to indulge his every whim, that she is his willing subject. She wants this. She wants you. 

 

He makes her jump when his fingers slowly wrap around her ankle. Stroking the delicate joint, he watches her reaction. Her lips parted and her nipples tightened in response. The fabric of her stockings catch along his rough calloused hands, but he still revels in the sensuality of it. He flicks her heel off, leaving her barefoot. She lay still, allowing him to do as he pleased and anticipating his next move. He mourned the loss of not being able to see her mind react to him through her eyes, he decided he would manage despite it, just for the possibilities she granted him. 

 

He hooked his fingers into the waist of the panties that hung from her ankle and pulled them off. Knowing she couldn’t see him and having a vague curiosity, he brought the crotch of them to his nose and breathed in her salty musk. The very scent of her desire for him ladden within the fabric that caressed the sweet sweet skin he had only just experienced. He looked at her again, again sighting his prey. He growled lowly and threw the scrap of cloth to the floor, forsaking it for the buffet she offered. With a sense of smell, he was guaranteed a sense of taste. 

 

He barely tamed the growing want to manhandle her. To grab her by her delicate ankles and throw her about until she was in whatever position suited him. He knew she would be willing enough, but he had unleashed the beast in him once with her, she need not experience it again. Instead, he touched with gentleness. Softly curling his massive hand around her calf and sliding it up, up, up, until he reached the lacey tops of her stockings. 

 

She shook and panted, trembling under his slow attack of her. He allowed himself to smirk, enjoying how easy it was to render her helpless to him. Without even having to use violence or threats. He clawed his fingers into the lace top until they parted with her skin, letting him peel the silky fabric from her legs like a snakeskin. Once it got to her knee, she pulled her thigh back towards her chest, actively helping him to bare her to his gaze. He pulled the stocking from her foot, also sighting that glistening and pink place that flashed at him from between her thighs. 

 

Throwing the stocking to the floor, he repeated his actions on her other leg, watching her move to assist him. Pale white skin flexed and moved, the texture softer than anything he could ever remember feeling. She gasped and goosebumps erupted across her skin as he touched all over her legs. Her bones felt like eggshells beneath his fingers, so delicate, but also somehow strong enough to have already endured him at his worst. 

 

He enjoyed the sight of his slightly tanned hands, rough and strong, against her delicate white skin. He couldn’t feel the bumps that swept her, but he could feel the occasional shake. She held still for him, like a rabbit; fully aware it was caught but frozen in time. He smoothed his hands up her legs again. Taking his time to enjoy what was being given him and finding that as each second ticked from the clock on one of his desks, he wanted more. 

 

His thumbs crested over the ridges of her hip bones, marveling at how he had not broken such a fragile thing. Women were made so much softer than men, their bones and muscles smaller. Meant for protecting and tenderness. Her breath rushed out as he coasted his hands up her belly. He smiled at her following gasp of breath as his fingers rose over her ribcage. She had such a lovely build, small in the right places, curves in the right places, and a touch of muscle. Enough to remind him that she was no shrinking violet. 

 

But his exploration of her body was halted by a configuration of lace and wire. Now laying down, her breasts were more obscured from his sight than he preferred. He decided that the contraption must go. He snuck a finger into the band, toying with its strength. Seeing how much resistance it would provide. It would break, but it risked injuring her. He decided against ripping the damn thing off of her and set about looking for its clasp. 

 

He knew they had one, these torture devices that woman forced themselves into. He had just never had the situation where he needed to remove one. The previous women were already naked when he went to them. He grumbled as he searched the front for fastenings, his fingers dexterous despite their size. Lizbeth gave a tiny giggle and smiled. He frowned at her blindfolded face, finding no humor in this situation and dared her to be laughing at him. 

 

He found the thrice damned fasteners at her back, nearly past his short patience. She lifted her chest up, arching for him. He felt around, surmised that it was a simple hook and loop style and within a couple of seconds had the thing undone. He yanked it off of her and threw it with a growl. She giggled again, visionless, and could not see his glare of warning. 

 

“Do I amuse you?” He asked, growling low in his throat and leaning close enough that his breath mingled with hers. Her giggles halted and her face melted into fear. She shook her head. 

 

“No,” She whispered, her breath coming only occasionally. “It was just that all men hate bras. Even you.” She replied, her body now tense with fear that he had not meant to cause. She did not fully trust him yet. He did not blame her. He had shown her only his mercurial temperament, but not yet his unfaltering focus.

 

His eyes swept up and down her torso, eyes landing on where his hand rested against her ribs. “Hmm.” He hummed in response. He moved his hand up her ribs until it covered her full breast. Her breath flew out as she simultaneously pressed up into his hand, her rosy little nipple tight against his palm. He palmed her breast firmly, watching as she left fear behind and arched for him. She panted and licked her lips, turning back into that succubus that made him lose all sense. 

 

He left her, just long enough to strip himself of his last piece of clothing. He climbed on the bed, hovering over her, and pushed her further up the bed. 

 

Sweet temptress, you have bewitched me. 

 

\---------

 

Liz could hardly breathe. She could feel him looming over her, his weight balanced on his hands and knees. Braced over her like a tiger over his prey. She wished she could see him. See whatever intense expression he wore. See his body bunch and flex with movement. The blindfold was a bittersweet thing, though it flooded her senses with his scent. Man and bergamot. She felt helpless and would be the first to admit that she loved it. She felt more at his mercy now than she had when he had her pinned to the wall and fucked her wildly. 

 

Her senses were on high alert. Her blood pounded. She felt him move after a long pause. She was all alight from his undressing her and touching her. All the little hairs on her body stood, reaching for him, like electricity. He moved closer, nearly making her jump when his humid breath ghosted across her lips. She froze, waiting. She didn’t want to chase him off. But he was driving her insane with his teasing and taunting. She held as still as she could, feeling more movement. 

 

She jumped when the barest of pressures touched her bottom lip. She couldn’t help it and she would have apologized for it. Except that in the instant following the touch, she realized what it was. 

 

His lips tentatively brushed hers making her whole body that much more sensitive. Yet she couldn’t think of the rest of her body, she could only think of the small spots where their lips touched. She grew dizzy and sucked in a breath she had been holding. He did not move, seeming to wait for her reaction. 

 

She closed her mouth a little more and moved so carefully up towards him, increasing their contact. She trembled and shook, ravaged by the thought. She was kissing him. A man who put no stock in such frivolities. A man who admitted to rarely kissing. A man who she thought always so far from her reach. But yet he was here. Touching her. Kissing her. Breathing with her. 

 

He was the next to move. He was cautious and stiff but seemed interested. He shifted his head to the side, allowing more contact, still only the lightest of pressures. It still sent a thrill skittering through her. 

 

She parted her lips and teased his bottom lip. A pressing and gentle capture before release it. Testing and taunting. His lips were full and firm, that she could tell. They also made her light headed and feel so much more alive than anything she had ever felt. 

 

He stayed a hair’s breadth from her. The seconds ticked by in silent mingling of breath. But her patience was rewarded by the return of his mouth to hers, firmer, more confident, though still careful. 

 

She followed his gentle lead, slowly countering and parring until they were a battle. A battle to make the other as wild as they felt. She nearly lost all thought when he sucked her lip between his, rubbing it briefly before releasing it with a snap. 

 

She might have made a sound, she didn’t know. She did know that she now clung to him, her arms no longer passive and limp. She did moan into his voracious mouth when she cradled his head in one hand, his bare ear pressed to her palm. It was at the same moment that she touched her tongue to his lips and felt him freeze into warm stone. 

 

She tried again, swiping her tongue against his bottom lip. She stopped when she felt something about his lip. Swiping her tongue over it again, she identified the marks that marred his lip on occasion. He is scarred. I am not the pretty boy you imagine. She waited for his reaction. Waited for him to run like he had when she got too close to the man beneath. 

 

But he did not run. He stayed and waited on her. She wished she could open her eyes and look at him, but it was not to be. So instead she pressed a hand to the back of his head, tilted further, and asked entrance again. Ignoring the scars on what she imagined were beautiful lips. 

 

He gave an odd tourniqueted sound in his throat before he pressed back into her, giving in and seeming to crumble under her acceptance. He parted for her and met her, the tips of their tongues touching and setting her aflame again. 

 

She tried to pull him towards her, closer. Needing him to not be so far away and only touching by the lips. But he resisted her. So she arched up, using a flexibility and strength that was born only from want. His breath came out hot and gusty against her cheek. What hesitance he once had, was gone as he battled lips and tongue just as artfully as anyone she knew. He followed her every move, copying and parrying with his own fervor. 

 

As their breath came in rushing pants against their cheeks, Bane pulled away. She gave a short whine, wanting back to where he stoked the fire in her. She burned again, like he when had pinned her against him. His large hand cradled the back of her head and forced it to the side, baring her throat to him. She surrendered without thought of hesitation, feeling the tingling edges of sub-space creep in. 

 

His lips swept up and down her neck like carpet bombs to her nerves. He nibbled and licked and kissed. Touching everywhere. Tasting the salty sweat on her skin from their previous coupling, growling deeply at what he found. Testing the delicate skin over her pulse with his teeth, like a primal warning of his dominance. Kissing the spot behind her ear in a sensual tenderness. It was maddening and electrifying. Thick calloused fingers found her right nipple, dancing around it. Teasing her, making her arch for him and pant. 

 

Liz couldn’t tell if she had a corporeal body any more. All she was made of was sinuous need, lit up by his touch. Swirling, lapping, tugging, licking, twisting, soothing. She no longer recognized the mindless sounds that came out of her throat nor the way her body didn’t seem to stop moving. She nearly arched right off the bed when he sunk his teeth into her collarbone. 

 

“Ahhh, fuck!” She gasped loudly, feeling the sharp pain of the bite before white hot heat swept through her and settled in her belly. It made her ache and throb, needing him all over again. She rode the sweet pain, completely unaware of anything else but the delicious sting. 

 

Until fingers slid through the slickness between her thighs and rubbed that spot that always promised pleasure. But when a wet heat latched onto her other neglected nipple and created a vacuum, there was no controlling the gasping cry or way her back bowed towards him. Burning lust filled her until she could think of nothing else but ‘more’. 

 

She didn’t know what was happening around her, only what was happening to her. She didn’t know that Bane was fully immersed in making her cry and scream and whimper his name. She didn’t know that she was expansively opening his sexual horizons past anything he thought possible for himself. 

 

She also didn’t know that in her moving in pleasure, her blindfold had shifted. 

 

\-----------------

 

Bane was entranced by her reactions and what sounds he could cause in her. Her neck was littered with little red marks that would become bruises by morning. The bite on her collarbone looked nasty already, skin nearly broken in his need to devour her. His crooked teeth making two half moons of red indentations. But her reaction had sent blood straight to his cock. There was no helping it, she had gasped and moaned so beautifully with her voice sounding like pure sex. 

 

He looked up from where he toyed with her nipple with his tongue; swirling and sucking and biting. His fingers were busy taunting and rubbing between her legs at the firm spot above her sweet eden. He watched her panting and groaning, eyes closed. Her dark lashes making crescents against her flushed skin.

 

Wait. Fuck. The blindfold. Bane’s heart pounded in his chest. Her nipple popped out from his lips as he covered her eyes with his hand. She twitched, as if surprised, but too lost to the sensations in her body to know what was wrong. 

 

He took a deep breath and calmed himself. She obviously hadn’t seen his face. But she had manipulated the blindfold off. He quickly pulled it back where he wanted it and hoped it would stay. He stared down at her. Then he got an idea to try something he had read in her writings. Something that filled him with a curiosity. Something that she wanted him to do. 

 

“Turn over.” He ordered. She seemed to ignore him, for she didn’t move. He let the irritation at not being obeyed override the panic he had felt moments ago. He grabbed her by her hips and flipped her over. She gave a surprised gasp but gave no move to escape. 

 

“You disobeyed me.” He growled over her, still straddling her thighs. He ran a finger down the arch of her spine, biting his lip at the sensual curve of it. He followed it to the two dimples above each rounded cheek that made his mind numb. 

 

“Huh?” She asked dumbly, clearly having a problem understanding language at the moment. He palmed a firm cheek in his hand, squeezing it and noting were little marks were starting to appear from his manhandling of her earlier. He leaned over her, feeling a rush of anticipation that was similar to waiting for a building to become engulfed in flames. Only so much better.

 

“The blindfold came loose.” He growled, watching her shiver. Her body tensed beneath him, as if realizing that she had broken a rule that she didn’t know had existed. “There are consequences.” He whispered, loving how she trembled. He ran his tongue up the shell of her ear, listening to her moan. 

 

“I am sorry.” She whispered back, shaking with fear and anticipation. He could hear all he needed to know of her consent to what he wanted. It was elated surrender mixed with a dark sensuality that promised debauchery. He loved it. 

 

He straightened again and looked down at his consenting canvas. He ran his hands over both of her buttocks, watching the flesh give to him. Goosebumps rose on his skin as he pulled his right hand away. He waited, savoring the moment. 

 

With a crack, his palm met silky skin. Her flesh jiggled and rippled in response. A heat rose through his body at the sight, watching as it pinked in the shape of his hand. She had gasped and breathed harshly. 

 

“Again.” She begged quietly, her breath a husky rush. He pulled his hand back and let fly again, breathing through the rush of lust. He held much of his strength back, not wanting to actually hurt her. Only to make the smack sting a little. 

 

Had Bane been asked, he would have denied any idea that violence and sex could mix in a positive way. He also would never have believed that he would enjoy the act so much. Ever since witnessing Talia’s mother falling beneath a sea of men, Bane always refused any form of violence against women. But now he was starting to see the true difference that consent makes. 

 

Her skin reddened further with each smack. She gasped with each strike, sometimes followed by a soft moan. She became less tense beneath him except for when each impact made contact, she jumped. She leaned on her elbows with her head bowed panting through his punishment. 

 

He stopped, breathing heavy and feeling such an aching need. He thought he might burst from the fire in his veins. Her ass was red with his handprints. Her breathing wasn’t much better than his own. He leaned over her again, enjoying the power he felt hovering over her. She seemed so small beneath him like she was. 

 

“Will you behave?” Bane asked, grumbling into her hair, nosing through it and smelling her perfume. She smelled of coconuts, vanilla, woman, and sweat. It was intoxicating. He couldn’t wait much longer. He needed her again. He ached and hungered, nearly driven mad all over again. She gave a moaning whine of assurance, lost into whatever state of mind she had fallen into. “Promise to not look. Swear to me.” He growled, feeling power rush in his body like a drug. 

 

“I swear. I promise to be good.” She whined, sounding so broken by her unintentional disobedience. He soothed a hand down her spine, feeling her arch and move like a cat beneath him. 

 

“Good.” Bane cooed in her ear, his tone foreign to his own ears, sounding of delectable dark promises. He untied the blindfold from her head and gently pressed her head down towards the blankets beneath them. 

 

Oh yes, the depravity. He thought to himself with his scarf in his hands. He may be more like what she wanted then he knew. 

 

\------------

 

Liz drifted along a delicious sea of pleasure and pain. She rested her head against the pillows and blankets, breathing in the scent they provided. They smelled like Bane and soap and warm cloth. 

 

Desire swept her again when she felt his hot breath ghosting delicately against her stinging ass. His lips met the abused skin and set her more aflame. Hot buzzing need filled her body making her even wetter for him. She throbbed and panted, feeling so empty without him inside her. 

 

But his kisses and lapping tastes at her skin sent more waves of shivers up and down her skin, pushing her ever closer to that exquisite edge he had already taken her to once. His massive hands wrapped around her hips, fingers digging briefly into her hipbones, before pulling her up until she rested on her knees. 

 

Bane swept a hand up her spine again, soothing her and pushing her into a more extreme arch. He touched her all over as if he couldn’t get enough of her. It calmed her nerves from his spanking, but also stoked her ever higher. He was driving her insane with the need. With the ache he caused deep inside her. 

 

“Please,” She whined out quietly. His calloused hands rasped up her sides as he leaned over her, his muscular belly touching her tender backside. 

 

“Hmm?” He asked with slight amusement. 

 

“Please.” She begged again, feeling her face flushed red with the slight shame. 

 

“Please what?” He taunted, bringing more of his body in contact with her. His hard cock slid easily between her sopping folds, tempting her. His chest pressed against her back, reminding her that she was at his whim. “Beg for me sweet witch.” He rasped out, finally starting to sound as affected as she felt. 

 

“Please, I need you.” She garbled out lamely, so lost to the pleasure and lust that words were difficult. He licked at the sweat along her neck, making her moan. 

 

“Hmm. Perhaps I won’t.” Bane said, torturing her. She gave a helpless cry, tears nearly coming to her eyes at the thought of being left this needy, this filled with want, this empty. He thrust against her, sliding against her clit and through the wet between her thighs. She moaned at the feeling that swept through her, hot and wild. He groaned with her. 

 

“Please!” She openly begged. Her voice saturated with her desperation. 

 

“Show me.” He whispered in her ear. “Show me how much you need me.” He challenged darkly. 

 

Seeing that as all the permission she needed, she dropped to the mattress. Rolling over to her front without any hesitation or thought. She paused for a second, eyes open and looking straight at his face. 

 

It wasn’t as bad as he made it out to be. Yes, his lips had scars. Nasty ones. And yes, his nose had been broken quite badly. It was even notched in one corner. He had also suffered from acne at some point. But as he looked down at her, an expression of shock and hesitation, Liz could find no life-altering fault in him. He was still her Bane. Scars and all. 

 

She pulled her knees to her chest and parted her thighs so that one lay on each side of him. His piercing eyes watched her. They locked gazes and she did her best to show him that nothing changed. That she still wanted him. That she didn’t fear him. That she didn’t find him lacking. She sat up, reached for the back of his head, and pulled him into a bruising kiss that seemed to shock him back into action. 

 

Bane groaned fiercely against her lips, devouring her as best he could. Liz used his weight and strength to hold herself up and pull herself in contact with him. His cock got trapped between them, rubbing vertically against her, making them both moan again. She got her legs under her and pushed Bane back on to his heels. 

 

She pulled back from his mouth, looking straight into his dilated eyes. Taking his rock hard cock in hand, she rose and fell on him. She controlled his entering of her. Controlled his filling pressure and stretching ache, feeling everything anew with the change of angle. They both groaned at the feeling of her reaching the end, embedded so deeply. Her feeling him rub those exquisite places inside of her again. Him likely feeling how wet and tight she was. 

 

She pulled his mouth to hers again, wanting him to invade her every sense. Rocking slightly, she shuddered at her nerves tingling. He moaned deep in his throat and gripped her hips. She continued to rock, the position limiting her movement and slowly ratcheting them higher, inch by inch. Her hands touched everywhere on him that she could reach. His back, his arms, his scalp, his neck, his spine. 

 

Breathing became an ordeal, forcing them to part from their kiss and breathe separately. Bane bucked under her, obviously needing more than what she was giving. She cried at the change, her internal muscles clamping for a moment at the shock of pleasure he caused. He exhaled harshly, as if her tightening took the air from him. 

 

She tried rocking into that angle but couldn’t, not with her sitting on his lap. He seemed to agree. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and threw them both around until he was on top of her. His weight pressed her into the mattress. He pressed closer to her and sunk a little deeper when she tilted her hips up, making them both pant with animal lust. 

 

Bane wrenched her hands off of him and pinned them in his hands above her head. He stared down at her and gave her a moment to object. When she gave none, his eyes fluttered shut and he thrust. 

 

She rocked up to meet each of his exquisite plunges back into her body. The smooth slide of his cock meeting no resistance and ravaging each of her nerves. The pressure built higher and higher. She moaned and arched, feeling her body unintentionally flexing in reaction. Bane was not idle. He put his mouth to use tasting the other side of her neck and making a trail to her nipple. He sucked and thrust and flicked and rocked and swirled. 

 

She could feel that mountain fast approaching. The climb was growing steadily. It was ebbing ever closer to her grasp. She fought against his grip on her wrists and pushed closer to his mouth on her breast. Sweat beaded but had no bearing on her world that was velvet desire. 

 

“Please.” She begged, needing more. He answered with an especially punishing thrust, making her ass sting. And making her arch up, thighs opening further. “More.” She pleaded. Bane gave an amused moan before giving her exactly what she wanted. 

 

He pounded relentlessly, slingshotting her towards that peak. She nodded mindlessly, words lost in the chaos filling her with hot electricity. Close, close, so close. More. Need more. Gods, yes. Bane released her nipple, releasing panting groans continuously against her shoulder. 

 

Feeling that cresting feeling build, she couldn’t help her body tightening against him in anticipation. Her thighs gripped his ribs. Her toes curling tight. Her neck arcing back. Breathing became difficult and distracting. The ball of building heat in her belly grew ever bigger. Her throat grew hoarse with her cries. There, there. Oh god. It almost hurt with the ecstasy as that ball of promise imploded.

 

It swept her along, taking her breath and soul. Shaking her free from her body and sucking her under into a pool of hot blood and sex. Bane continued fucking her, adding to the sounds she made and rode through her trembling and shaking, making her body twitch with each thrust that lit up her nerves like an atomic bomb. 

 

She returned to her body, feeling wonderfully relaxed, but was given no time to enjoy it yet. Bane had not yet reached his peak. Though if his loud moans were anything to go by, he wasn’t far off. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. His eyes were dark with hunger and more open than she had seen them. He was bare to her and needed her. More than she had ever hoped for. 

 

He was desperate for that end, she could see that. It was something she wanted nothing more than to give him. She buried her face against his shoulder, still feeling the washes of lingering pleasure from her orgasm. She kissed his damp skin with an open mouthed kiss. She followed up and up, paving a path up to his ear as he pumped erratically into her. 

 

She started with a kiss to his earlobe. She tongued the edge. Bane’s hips snapped reactively, his panting and moaning growing more pronounced. She grinned and did it again and again, feeling him lose control. His whole body started to shake, signalling his nearing of that delicious edge. 

 

She opened her mouth and grazed her teeth against his earlobe, lighting up nerves that likely never got more than a cursory touch. It took not more than half a second after, Bane was spilling into her, groaning so loudly, twitching uncontrollably, his whole body a rictus of overwhelming pleasure. 

 

\-------------

 

The first thing Liz became aware of was sunlight shining through her eyelids. The light of early morning. She didn’t open her eyes yet. She was too comfortable. She felt more well rested than she had in years. Giving a stretch, she was stopped short by a plethora of sore muscles. Her back ached and her thighs hurt. Her ass stung and her wrists felt tender. 

 

But she started to notice more than just feeling abused. She was naked, something that she didn’t do even when she was home. She always wore at least an oversized t-shirt to bed. Her bed wasn’t this firm and her sheets were nowhere near as soft as these. Her laundry soap had a strong classic laundry scent, which was suspiciously absent as well. She opened her eyes and looked around. Definitely not home. 

 

Yesterday’s events slowly came back to her. The kidnapping that was god only knew how long ago. Being kept in a cell not knowing if she was going to die. Bane showing up and giving her hope. ‘Escaping’ her cell and getting found by Barsad then Bane. And then Bane….She didn’t know how to continue that thought. She had never expected her life to have taken the wonderful turn that it had. 

 

“This changes nothing.” His deep mechanical voice sounded from the corner of the bed. She jumped a little, having not heard him. She rolled so that she was faced his direction and sat up. 

 

She eyed him, trying to get a better feel for his mood this morning. She didn’t know what the morning after was going to be like with a megalomaniac. Nothing had prepared her for this moment. Though many of her thoughts from last night did come to her. She hadn’t fallen asleep immediately and her thoughts had swirled for a few minutes before sleep took her. 

 

Bane was dressed in clean fatigue pants, today in a earthy tan, and his mask latched firmly in place. His bare chest was on display and she rolled her eyes over his muscles, appreciating what was on view. He watched her with shuttered eyes, though something about how he held his arms whispered uncertainty to her. He stood, barely a foot from the corner of the bed, staring at her. She shifted herself so that she knelt, wincing at the tenderness between her legs. She held the sheet up to her chest, feeling a little more nude than she was currently comfortably with how he looked at her. 

 

“I know.” She whispered. She hadn’t seduced and fucked him to save her life. She did it because she wanted it and he had as well. Her heart pounded in her chest at the remembrance that she might die. She didn’t want to, but if that was his decision, then there wasn’t anything she could do about it. He blinked and nodded at her answer, accepting her answer. 

 

She bit her lip, the flood of words that she wanted to say, pushing at the tip of her tongue. Bane seemed like he had decided on what to do with her, but didn’t want to tell her yet. If that was the case, she wanted to get those words out before he gave her her sentence. Not that she thought it would change his mind. She just wanted to say them. She crawled forward on the bed, leaving the sheet behind and sat on her heels. 

 

“I didn’t do what I did to get you to spare me.” She told him, hoping he wouldn’t think that all this was a manipulation. “I had dreamt of this for years. I have wanted this, wanted to feel the things I did for as long as I can remember. I regret nothing. I would love nothing more than this to be the beginning. But I know better. I am just a woman. I have no value to you.” 

 

Bane frowned at her and seemed ready to argue with her. She held up her hand and he straightened again and allowed her to speak. 

 

“Thank you.” She whispered before finding her voice again. “I am not even good enough to be part of the League. I wasn’t good enough during the Occupation. I'm not now. I am not worthy to touch you. You are you. You are Bane. You are the leader of the League. I am some random bitch that hacks for crooked lawyers.

 

“But for whatever reason you have given me this gift. To know fantasy from reality. And I thank you for it.” Liz looked up at him and could see that he was still waiting for her to finish. She took a deep breath and continued. “I can tell that you have decided what to do with me. I’m not saying all this to get you to change your mind. My body is yours to do with as you want. Even if you want to kill me. I won’t fight you. Because I got to have this. I got to touch you and see you and talk to you. And I will take that with me into the next world.” Liz said strongly, speaking only the truth. She sighed and looked down at her hands on her thighs. She looked back up at him and put the full force of her next words into her eyes. 

 

“You are Master of me. You always will be. I don’t expect you to know how that feels to say, finally, but I would ask one thing from you.” She took a deep breath, feeling a flood of emotions well in her. Bane seemed content to wait her out. To see what she had to say. She could tell that this was not what he expected what so ever. “I ask only that you accept my submission before whatever happens next. Before I die.” Liz said with a pain in her heart. 

 

\---------------

 

Bane stood for a moment, staring at her. All he could think of was how she pleaded with him, her brown eyes almost welling with tears. He had once thought her so plain and unremarkable but somewhere within the past few hours that changed. She was no longer plain. She was exceptional and beautiful in a hidden way. Talia had been pretty on the outside but ugly beneath. Lizbeth was different. 

 

She accepted him. Wholly and completely. She accepted his change in moods. She accepted his scars. She accepted his violence. She accepted everything he found horrific. Everything that he despised in himself. She welcomed him in with open arms and demanded nothing in return but the privilege. 

 

“Lizbeth.” Bane said as softly as his mask would allow. He stepped forward and cupped her face with his hand. She pressed into it sapping what comfort she could and looked into his eyes with acceptance. “You will not die today.” He said, feeling a warmth fill his chest. It wasn’t the heat of lust but the warmth of affection. She smiled at him, a genuine one that made him smile in return. 

 

“I will always be here for you.” She whispered before pressing a kiss into his wrist. 

 

“I accept you.” Bane said, sealing himself to the woman in front of him. No, he couldn’t kill her. Not when she so willingly gave to all of him. Not when she was the only person on the planet to see his face and not flinch or pity him. She stared up at him, love practically flooding from her. No, he couldn’t kill her, not when that emaciated beast inside him had someone to love him. Whether he returned the emotion or not. 

 

\-----------------

Numerous hours earlier...

 

Barsad swung into the control room with a frown on his face. Jesse sat at one computer, dissecting Liz’s encryption program. There were only a small handful of others in the room. It was very late and the most of the crew worked during the day, keeping a skeleton crew at night. 

 

Barsad beelined straight for him and Jesse sighed. Something had gone wrong and Jesse would be expected to fix it. As Barsad got closer, Jesse started to see that his frown wasn’t of irritation, but concern. Barsad didn’t come around the desk, he just stood on the other side of it. 

 

“I need to ask a favor.” He said, standing in a relaxed but obviously military way. Jesse gulped. Favors from Barsad usually meant going against someone’s orders. Never any thing that would catch Bane’s attention, but Jesse didn’t like to poke bears that had homicidal tendencies. 

 

“What kind of favor are we talking about?” Jesse asked, not wanting to agree to something that was going to kill him. 

 

“I need you to check in on the Demon Head.” Barsad said. Jesse only frowned because why did he want him to check on Bane when Barsad was one of the few that could bug the goliath anytime without consequences. “I need you to hack his camera.” 

 

“Woah, woah, wait. You want me to spy on Bane?” Jesse asked, his voice going higher. This was exactly what he was talking about. Barsad nodded solemnly. 

 

“Miss Tsoukalos is in there. I went past the door but…” Barsad trailed off. “Just look in. For the Demon head.” Barsad ended more officially. Jesse thought about objecting. Until he saw how Barsad’s hand rested on the end of his gun. Jesse swallowed and decided that giving in and apologizing later was better than getting shot now. 

 

“Ok.” He agreed quietly. Feeling sick to his stomach, Jesse pulled up the program needed, hit some keys, and started to scan through the cameras. 

 

The bed was clear. Untouched and no signs of anyone from that angle. The bathroom was dark and empty as well. Jesse switched to the next camera and had to stop. He blinked, trying to process what he was seeing. But it didn’t take him long to decipher it. 

 

“Well, beat me dead with the family dog.” Jesse said with a smile. He leaned closer to the screen before it dawned on him that he was watching his best friend get pounded by his boss against the door.

 

“What? What is it?” Barsad asked, worried that something was happening to the only man that could ever be worthy of leading the League. Jesse looked at him and smiled. He pushed the monitor so that it pointed at Barsad. 

 

“Take a look for yourself.” Jesse said with a smile. 

 

Good for you girl. 

 

The End.

 

\--------------

 

So it’s done. I know it was long, but hopefully you guys liked it. There is a possibility of an Epilogue in the future but no promises. 

 

Please review!


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